CCTV cameras have been fitted to five new state-of-the-art buses in Clitheroe in a bid to help police crack crime.

Bus company Lancashire United has introduced the blue and cream single decker buses, costing £125,000 each, at the 20-vehicle depot at Pimlico Road.

They will operate journeys on route 225 linking Clitheroe to Blackburn and Bolton. Each of the Volvo buses is fitted with a digital CCTV system where two cameras cover the bus interior from front to rear, and a third watches all boarding and alighting.

A fourth, mounted on the dashboard, looks ahead to monitor other traffic movements, including road accidents and infringements at bus stops and in bus priority lanes.

Keighley and District Travel, which along with Lancashire United is a subsidiary of Harrogate-based Blazefield Holdings, pioneered the high-tech security system where the recording is done digitally to give a high quality colour reproduction.

Similar schemes are also up and running in Burnley and Harrogate.

Blazefield Group chairman Giles Fearnley said: "Blazefield introduced digital CCTV for the care and safety of our customers and drivers alike. It's our response to the call for bus operators to have regard for the personal safety and security concerns of women passengers, who form the highest percentage of bus users, especially when travelling on their own and in the evenings." He added: "What we did not anticipate was the high use of our CCTV system by the police, who are able to use video evidence from buses in court for prosecutions. We feel that CCTV is now making an important contribution to safety, both on and off the vehicles because our bus cameras can act like mobile versions of Neighbourhood Watch. In fact you could say we have become Bus Watch."