THE difficulty of eradicating or even containing prostitution on the streets is plain from the fact that the latest purge in East Lancashire is the latest of several in recent years.

The sex trade thrives according to the immutable law of supply and demand which hinders every effort to control it.

And the upshot often is that police crackdowns only tend to push the problem to another locality.

Indeed, the upsurge in prostitution in the Bank Top area of Blackburn, a district already known as a 'red-light' zone, is believed to be due to a clampdown on vice in Preston.

Now, the influx of more than 30 extra prostitutes into the area is said to be attracting kerb-crawling men from across Lancashire to the residential streets of Bank Top. And, rightly, the people living there have demanded action - and the police have responded.

More than 2,000 leaflets have been distributed by the force telling residents that steps are being taken. Plain clothes officers are patrolling the streets, targeting not only the prostitutes, but also their customers and scaring them away.

But if the quality of life for Bank Top residents is to lastingly improve, it is important that these efforts are on-going, not temporary. And though eliminating street prostitution more extensively may, as some pragmatists propose, require either its legalisation or the establishment of 'tolerance zones', which would inevitably entail huge controversy on both moral grounds and over the locations where it might be allowed, fundamental efforts to reduce the problem are also required.

Considerable hope, then, has to be placed on those that are going hand-in-hand with this latest purge in Blackburn, designed to free women from the vice trade by releasing them from the drug addiction which most admit they are funding through selling themselves on the streets.

Those arrested for prostitution are to be offered support through the Drug Arrest Referral Scheme which can lead to treatment and rehabilitation. Hopefully, this combination of enforcement and support will bring results.