THE licensees of the four village pubs in Briercliffe are taking a hard line against troublemakers.

With the police, they have launched a new pub watch scheme, Harle Syke Against Rowdy Disorder (HARD) and are promising tough action against any who misbehaves.

The scheme was launched at the Hare and Hounds pub in bid to clamp down on violence, drug use and anti-social behaviour in and around licensed premises.

The campaign is backed by all four pubs, the Hare and Hounds, Sun Inn, Craven Heifer and Commercial.

Village 'bobby' Michael Tomlinson, said: "The aim of the new initiative is to reduce the number of violent incidents and amount of anti-social behaviour in and around Harle Syke. Under the scheme, anyone involved in acts of serious assault, violence, drug supply or use inside or outside of licensed premises will face a ban from all the pubs taking part."

PC Tomlinson added: "We are delighted to be working in partnership with local licensees on this pro-active initiative.

"The publicans involved are very enthusiastic about the scheme having seen how well the town centre Burnley Against Night-time Disorder (BAND) scheme works."

He said the four licences recognised that a person causing trouble in their premises would just go to one of the others if they were ejected.

PC Tomlinson heard of their concerns and came up with the HARD scheme.

Hare and Hounds licensee David Pounder commented: "There is no great problem in the pubs up here but we felt the scheme should be put into place to combat any rowdyism and particularly violence.

"We wanted to set up a scheme to reassure our customers that there will be a zero tolerance approach. Anyone barred from any one of the pubs will be barred from all four."

The project follows the success of the Burnley Against Night-Time Disorder (BAND) scheme, launched last November with the power to ban anyone inside or outside licensed premises involved in a serious assault, violence, drug supply or use, from the town centre for a year.