LANCASHIRE education chiefs insist they are catering for blind children following a damning report which claims the region's visually-mpaired pupils are being denied the right to read.

The criticism has come in a report from charity The Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) which said blind and partially-sighted pupils in the North West were guilty of suffering a book famine'.

The report claimed nine out of 10 fiction books were not in large print, audio or braille, and even school textbooks were not automatically produced in accessible formats.

Lindsay Armstrong, RNIB North West spokesman said: "The 2,600 blind and partially-sighted children in the North West are losing out. It is nothing short of a scandal that these children are being denied something as basic as the right to read."

The problem is being mirrored across the UK with nine out of ten teachers nationally surveyed by RNIB believing a lack of resources meant blind and partially-sighted children struggled to keep up.

But Blackburn with Darwen Council staff and their counterparts at Lancashire County Council insist blind and partially blind pupils are not losing out.

A Lancashire County Council spokesman said: "There are very few pupils registered blind,but each pupil has a full-time teaching assistant to support them."

And Coun Maureen Bateson, executive member for children's services in Blackburn with Darwen, said it was a similar story for the 56 blind or visually-impaired pupils on its registers.

Despite being partially sighted Deepak Asal, 18, of Wensley Road, Blackburn, gained A and B grades at A-level at Blackburn College where staff helped with notes and written materials were adapted.

And Deepak, now reading law at Lancaster University, said: "Blackburn College welcomed me with open arms and were not put off by my disability."