POLICE are to use new high-tech equipment to help them catch criminals travelling to Rossendale.

The new £15,000 Automatic Number Plate Recognition System (ANPR) uses video cameras mounted in marked police vehicles to monitor passing cars and feed images into a national vehicle database.

This reads the registration numbers and automatically checks them against information held on a series of vehicle databases. It does not monitor speed. The high-tech system is capable of reading more than 1,000 vehicles an hour, identifying vehicles of interest regardless of speed or how busy the road may be.

Chief Insp Kevin Boyce said: "ANPR is a cost-efficient and effective policing tool that improves our ability to enforce the law, prevent crime, and detect offenders. It's a vital tool for detecting all sorts of crime and for reducing the number of stolen vehicles.

"Previous operations have uncovered stolen cars, stolen property and caught criminals on their way to commit crimes, so it is a very valuable policing tool. We are delighted to be taking delivery of our own system which will be for the sole use of Rossendale Valley police officers."

The Valley's ANPR system has been funded by the Rossendale Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership through the Home Office Building Safer Communities Grant fund.

Other ANPR systems are already being used by police in other parts of Lancashire, but this one will belong solely to the Rossendale Valley, where it will be used to trap travelling criminals.

Previous ANPR operations in the Valley have resulted in dozens of arrests with criminals travelling across the border from Greater Manchester among those detained by police.