A police station will have its hours drastically cut from next week.

Great Harwood police station’s counter service will have its opening hours more than halved from Monday, October 1.

It will now be open for seven hours a day, five days a week, shutting on Sundays and Mondays. The cutbacks follow a review of front counter services across the county with 14 front counters axed throughout the county, saving just over £386,000 a year.

Initially under the proposals the Hesketh Street counter was set to close altogether, but it was spared following a vocal campaign by the community with 5,000 leaflets handed out by protesters.

John Duckworth, chairman of Great Harwood regeneration board, is concerned about general police presence in the town.

He said: "The police have difficult budget restraints. I’m not saying I’m happy with it but it’s the old adage that if you don’t use it you lose it.

"In the current situation we are probably quite lucky to have a police station with those opening hours.

"I would be more concerned about the number of police actually operating in the town. I don’t like the idea that response officers are all being run from Accrington."

Lancashire police said members of the public can look forward to a "better quality of service".

Chief Supt Sarah Oldham said the changes were necessary to save money and to make the level of service provided to the public more consistent across stations.

She added: "When considering changes we looked very closely at visitor numbers in particular to identify those which are used the most in order to limit the impact to a potentially smaller number of people.

"We also listened to the views of the public and changed our proposals in response to some very strong opinions where we were able to do so." From next week, the station will be open to the public from 10am to 2pm and 3pm to 6pm, Tuesday to Saturday. Accrington police station will still be open seven days a week from 9am to 8pm. However, the police counter on Manchester Road, Haslingden is to be axed.