POLICE today said most New Year revellers behaved themselves and kept out of trouble.

Blackburn police made 31 arrests between midnight and 6am yesterday, mainly for public order offences, double the number made the previous New Year's eve.

But Insp Andrea Barrow of Blackburn Police said: "It was very busy in terms of arrests, especially in a short period of time, but there were no serious incidents . They were mainly fairly minor public order offences and drunkenness. Most arrests took place after people left pubs."

In the rest of the region, police said it was relatively quiet for a New Year's Eve with no major incidents.

Insp Steve Chapman of Lancashire Police said: "It was nothing out of the ordinary with most New Year's celebrations going well. We have the usual public order offences in town centres but we had enough resources at hand to cope."

The area's road policing unit based at Accrington reported no major incidents on East Lancashire's roads, with officers providing back-up for town centre disturbances.

For the rest of the night, it was business as usual as fire stations in Accrington, Blackburn and Darwen dealt with a handful of routine incidents including pan fires, rubbish fires and a car fire.

Lancashire ambulance staff had a busy night but took around 100 fewer calls, totalling around 390, than last year. Control room manager Mike Abel said: "We had plenty of resources on and coped, no problem.

"We get helped out on New Year's Eve by St John Ambulance who deal with a lot of the routine calls and lift the burden from us."