NINE people have received prompt emergency treatment through six Help Point buttons in Burnley town centre.

Use of the brightly coloured buttons gives instant access to the 24-hour control room running the town's award-winning CCTV system.

Over the last year, nine people have received emergency help from ambulance staff as a result of the Help Points.

They are also proving useful for people lost or looking for particular shops and facilities in the town centre.

"We get several calls on the Help Points each week, but people could use them more,'' said Burnley Council's community safety chairman Coun Tony Harrison.

"People often use the Help Points as convenient meeting places, safe in the knowledge that they are under the watchful eye of our CCTV system.

"On many occasions the camera operators have been alerted to potential problems and, in some cases, just by moving the camera a situation has been diffused,'' he added.

The Help Points provide an instant link with the CCTV operators, who can contact not only the police but any other emergency service with information relayed directly from the scene of the incident.

The Help Points are at Marks and Spencers, Curzon Street; Argos in the Market square; Bankfield, on the corner by the roundabout facing the Job Centre; McDonalds, St James Street, bus station, opposite Boot Way and bus station at the top of Gunsmith Place.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.