SIX months ago we reported how the sordid antics of so-called 'doggers' were putting people off visiting a number of East Lancashire beauty spots.

Worried about their children becoming becoming witnesses to unsavoury goings-on, parents were avoiding certain picnic spots and car parks in rural areas.

With motorists coming from outside the area looking for sex, people living locally were understandably concerned too about the possibility of rape or other attacks taking place.

Keeping up a watch on such remote, rural spots was also a problem for officers at the same time under pressure to maintain high profile policing in East Lancashire's urban areas.

Now it seems that a problem which had reached "epidemic" proportions has been checked with the use of a comparatively simple procedure - regular mounted police patrols.

Officers on horseback are able quickly and efficiently to get around woodland, fields, paths and laybys where these unwelcome visitors lurk.

And the fact that they can see what is going on - and be seen by those who shouldn't be there - has helped to keep unwelcome visitors away.

By using these "off roaders", police have shown, as Coun Jean Rigby points out, that the countryside is not a soft option for criminals or any kind.