A NIGHTLIFE champion is calling for more police on the street after a library was damaged by ‘mindless idiots’ on New Year's Eve.

Rubbish and litter was scattered around Blackburn town centre and the entrance doors to Blackburn Central Library, situated on Town Hall Street, were found smashed on the morning of New Year’s Day.

Now James Lee Newton, from Blackburn’s Nightlife, said more police on the streets would prevent incidents like this.

He said: “Blackburn is a lovely town it’s a pure shame that some of the people don’t look after it.

“Hopefully with the CCTV the mindless idiots will be caught.

“I do believe if there were more police on the street, doing patrols things like this would not happen.

“It’s not just Blackburn, it’s happening across the country in towns and cities.

“Stricter laws need to come, also what would be a good idea is shutters to be put up on business windows and more cctv to be put up and more security to prevent things like this from happening in the future.”

Martin Eden, Director of Environment and Leisure at Blackburn with Darwen Council, said the cost of repairs will take vital funds from elsewhere. He said: “This is mindless vandalism and it is especially upsetting that it has happened over the New Year period.

“This will obviously cost time and money to repair which takes vital funds from elsewhere and will be an inconvenience to library users.

“We will be working with the police to try and catch these vandals.”

A police spokesman said: “The incident was reported to us on Monday morning.

“The side entrance in North Gate has been damaged and had to be boarded up.

“Bins have also been turned over.

“We believe someone from the local policing team visited the scene yesterday.”

The vandalism was one of more than 1000 incidents police were called to on New Year's Eve.

Officers in Blackburn, Burnley, Darwen, Hyndburn, Pendle, Ribble Valley and Rossendale made a large number of arrests, broke up brawls and were forced to deal with a high number of domestic altercations.

The night of New Year’s Eve ended with the police cells full at Blackburn and Preston custody suites.