CAMPAIGNERS in a Rossendale town are doing their bit to save the world - with a little nudge from a county councillor.

County council bosses were concerned that people in Whitworth had not expressed much enthusiasm for an initiative to make the town plastic-bag free, after being selected alongside the Fylde town Thornton for a pilot venture.

But county councillor Sean Serridge says that while traders have given a cautious welcome to the environmental scheme, young crusaders have taken the project’s aims to heart and produced designs for a new ‘real’ shopping bag.

Coun Serridge said: “We decided to do a pilot to see how it would work and look at rolling it out a bit bigger.

“I spent a full day going around shops in Whitworth and we found that while everyone was really supportive, they weren’t that enthusiatic.

“So we have decided to do a county-wide campaign instead. Two children from Whitworth and one from Thornton were chosen originally to design the bags.

“I’ve made sure that those winning designs will stil be involved quite heavily and they will be going to be on the side of Rossendale Transport buses.

"Plastic bags make up only a small part of landfill, but it’s about getting people into the mindset of helping the environment.”

Elsewhere the county council has pledged to become ‘plastic bag free’ by next March and the library service will launch its own range of reusable bags next month.

In early December a campaign is set to take place where each county councillor will be given 200 of the “real” bags to hand out in their communities.

Earlier this month environment official Andrew Coombe said in a council report: “The county councillors representing these areas agreed to champion this scheme.

“(They carried) out work to identify shops in each town and engage with retailers to identify their needs and their willingness to participate in a carrier bag free scheme.

“Unfortunately, the response received by the two councillors was not very positive in either town and the idea of carrier bag free towns has subsequently been dropped.”

But Coun Serridge denied the initiative had been scrapped and added: “I think what we have now is actually better than before.”