ACCORDING to a new report child abuse in East Lancashire is worse than anywhere else in the county.

More than 40 per cent of all children placed on Lancashire's child protection register for the year ended March 1996 were from this area.

These are shocking figures.

Listed high on the list of areas of concern in the report to Lancashire's Child Protection committee is the impact of drug abuse on parents' ability to bring up their children.

Here is yet another area in which the evil drugs trade has had a dreadful impact.

And this puts even more pressure on the county's already over-stretched child protection services.

It is true that more cases of child abuse are reported these days.

That is encouraging. A problem cannot be tackled until it is identified.

But the fact remains, our child protection services have reached the point where they cannot really cope with this worrying increase in abuse.

It is an area which screams out for priority rating.

Children are our future. And the county council should be doing all in its power to make sure the money and the trained personnel are available to remedy this disgraceful situation.

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