COUNCIL chiefs in Hyndburn, I see, are considering action for trespass against the nigh-permanent touts pestering for business in Accrington's major shopping street -- a bunch led by ones working for the no-win, no-fee legal firms seeking to represent injury victims and grab a fat slice of any compensation they may win.

Good for them -- these vultures, living off the where-there's-blame, there's-a-cheque outlook that's mushroomed with the no-win, no-fee system, are a modern-day plague in shopping centres and on the knocker around East Lancashire housing estates.

Such pushy and spivvy salesmanship should alert potential clients as to whose interests these outfits have most at heart.

But rather than councils having to tortuously resort to the law themselves and sue for civil trespass to curb this sort of canvassing in the streets, should not the government be putting a smart stop to it and to halting the soaraway compensation culture -- one that, ultimately, costs us all a packet in higher insurance premiums and taxes to fund the ever-increasing pay-outs?

If our new no-nonsense Home Secretary David Blunkett was bold enough to restore the ban on advertising by law firms, their predatory nuisance tactics and the compensation bill would be cut at a stroke.