THE Beatles famously sang about its 4,000 holes - now Blackburn is addressing the problem with the UK's first ever course entirely for highways inspectors.

Blackburn College, in conjunction with borough-based highway agents Capita Symonds, is behind the pioneering three-week course.

It aims to equip road inspectors and engineers with skills ranging from how to deal with compensation claims to stopping pot holes forming in the first place.

Those behind the course, fully accredited as a national qualification, set it up to meet the "fast-changing role of traditional highways inspectors and road engineers".

Students are taught everything from preventing and identifying potholes in the road, kerb and pavement maintenance, hazards on the highways, road construction issues, court procedures and legal implications.

Participants also literally get to grips with chunks of asphalt from major Lancashire routes such as the M6 to demonstrate the methods of repair, the composition of roads, and problems confronted by both motorists and pedestrians.

Staff from Capita Symonds, Carlisle, who carry out highway inspections on behalf of Lancashire County Council, were the first to sign up to the course last week and now local authority workers across the country are queueing up to enrol.

The college is working with Midlothian Council in Scotland, Walsall Council in the West Midlands and currently talking to councils in Kent, London and the Wirral.

Leading the course are Michael White and Gary Greenwood from Capita Symonds Blackburn, who intend to put their own staff through the programme later this year.

Mr White said: "We are now living in a climate of compensation culture and the legal aspects of the job are becoming more and more important.

"We want to ensure council budgets are spent on roads and not necessarily in court costs.

"Claims are on the increase with people knowing their rights these days - in Blackburn alone we had 250 claims last year ranging from a few hundred pounds for damage to a vehicle to a claim for £75,000 over an alleged defect in the road said to have caused someone serious injuries and broken bones."

The course also works closely with highways inspectors from across Lancashire.

They include Ruth Smith, 26 from Guide, Blackburn who has monitored roads in Lancashire and Cumbria for the last four years working for Capita Symonds Cumbria.

She said: "It's not just about crumbling roads and potholes.

"It is about customer relations and often how you deal with enforcement, claims and also court appearances.

"We are often in the frontline."