LANCASHIRE had the ninth highest number of cash-in-transit robberies out of the country's 43 forces last year, it has been revealed.

The GMB released the figures in the wake of last week's £50million raid on a Securitas depot in Kent.

Paul Kenny, the union's acting general secretary, said the robbery, Britain's biggest ever, was a reflection of the increasing dangers being faced by workers in the cash delivery industry.

In Lancashire there were 14 attacks on guards making deliveries to cash machines and banks in Lancashire, up one incident from 2004.

Earlier this month machete-wielding robbers held up a Securicor van at the BP Rossendale Service Station in Waterfoot and made off with a "substantial amount of cash" after threatening a guard.

And last April robbers made off with £40,000 after swooping on a Securicor guard delivering to the HSBC in Morrisons supermarket, off Railway Road, Blackburn.

The problems in the county have been so bad that in the run up to Christmas police teamed up with counterparts in Greater Manchester and Merseyside to provide cash deliveries with armed guards to prevent robberies.

Nationally there were 836 cash-in-transit attacks last year, up 8.7 per cent on 2004. In the past three years 447 guards have been injured in robberies, 58 seriously.