RESIDENTS in Great Harwood can look forward to a second beat bobby making their streets safer.

PC Ian Durber is the latest community beat manager to be appointed to the Great Harwood area, working alongside current CBM PC Helen Jackson.

The married father-of-two, who has been a police officer for nearly 20 years, joins a team of four based at Great Harwood, including PC Jason Manning, who covers Clayton-le-Moors, and PC Mark Skellorn, who covers Rishton.

PC Durber said that he had worked in Great Harwood before and was looking forward to getting to know the residents again.

He added that he would be aiming to work with community groups such as Great Harwood Action Group, newly-formed residents' associations, Friends of Memorial Park and Great Harwood Prospects Panel.

He also hopes to do a lot of work with youth outreach workers and plans to hold community surgeries in the town once a month.

PC Durber said: "Great Harwood is like any other part of the borough - there are no specific problems to the town but there are problems with juvenile nuisance, occasional bogus callers and so on.

"We want to make an impact by going round a lot of the elderly people there and offering reassurance. For example, with the new burglary initiative, we will be visiting the places where burglaries occur and trying to get the householder more involved from the start.

"I will be liaising with PC Jackson, who has already done a lot of the groundwork, and with the five primary schools in Great Harwood.

"We will also be doing a firework initiative in the area. It is a question of the residents seeing us regularly - we want to be approachable and we want them to know that we're here."

Anyone who wants to contact PC Durber or PC Jackson can ring 353118.