COUNCIL leaders are searching for money to make sure that fewer girls become very young mums.

A special grant which funds Bury's teenage pregnancy strategy will no longer be available after 2006.

With no guarantee of whether the shortfall will be made up in the general council budget, officers are trying to identify now where the money will come from.

They point to a drop in teenage pregnancy rates since Bury implemented its strategy, and a higher rate than the average for getting teenage parents into employment, training and education.

The UK has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe. In Bury, in 2001 there were 156 under-18 conceptions. Officers say that young parents are more likely to be unemployed and trapped in poverty through lack of education, child care and encouragement.

They also say there is evidence that the death rate for babies of young mothers is 60 per cent higher than for babies of older mothers, and they are more likely to have low birth weight, have childhood accidents and be admitted to hospital. Later, their daughters have a higher chance of becoming young parents themselves.