I AM heartened by the outlook of Lancashire's new Chief Constable, Paul Stephenson, who pledges priority for keeping officers out on the beat and not

reducing such frontline services - even if it means taking on the Home Secretary.

As he says, a greater police presence on the streets is what people want,

But at the same time we see an instance of how these old-time coppers can indeed vanish in the squeeze of 'priorities'.

Right now, they are

playing pop in Worsthorne, near Burnley, over their local bobby not being replaced after he went sick some time ago. Now they have a village bobby shared with Cliviger down the road.

The way Worsthorne

residents look at it, with intimidating young yobs taking over the place at night, folk frightened to go out and drug dealing alleged to be taking place, is that the commitment to community policing is selective to say the least.

Yet if such reductions in policing are what communities like Worsthorne are expected to accept, how does this explain resources galore - £10 million, no less - for the anti-speeding

campaign which will give the county the second-highest number of speed cameras in the country?

All this is when Britain's roads are among the safest in the world.

In this new and expensive overkill drive against harassed motorists, East Lancashire is to get 43 speed cameras on top of the ones it already has.

Perhaps Mr Stephenson might consider whether £10 million spent on more unnecessary hounding of motorists is a better priority than more community and village bobbies - and take on the Home Secretary accordingly.