MEMBERS of a prostitution action group from Bolton are to go on a fact-finding mission to Middlesbrough to see how the town's zero tolerance approach to vice has helped to cut crime.

Delegates from Bolton Council's newly-formed prostitution policy development group plan to visit the North-east town in the next couple of months to see if a similar scheme would work in Bolton.

Middlesbrough was responsible for a quarter of all kerb-crawling convictions in the country between 2002 and 2004, but now only 15 prostitutes work on its streets compared to 200.

Now Government ministers want to see its zero tolerance approach - which sees kerb crawlers named and shamed and prostitutes educated on the health risks of the sex trade - repeated across England and Wales.

The Bolton group chairman, Cllr Sean Hornby, said: "The trip will definitely go ahead in the next couple of months, we're just trying to settle on a date.

"I think it's going to be a very useful exercise. We'll be meeting with council officials and outreach workers to discuss how the policy is implemented and the benefits to the community as a whole."

Bolton remains one of only a handful of authorities which actually has a policy for dealing with prostitution.

The Shiffnal Street and Breightmet Street areas of the town have been established by police as a designated management zone for prostitutes.

Bolton Council has the authority to use anti-social behaviour orders against prostitutes who are working during the day or in residential areas at any time.

But critics of the current policy believe this has only moved the problem. The vice girls who once plied their trade in The Haulgh now pick up business in the Great Lever area, 24 hours a day.

The Bolton group was set up at the end of last year in response to an anti-prostitution petition signed by more than 2,000 people.

Community activist Walter Scott, of Bromwich Street, Bolton, said: "I attended a conference in Middlesbrough on their zero tolerance approach and the results speak for themselves.

"The number of prostitutes working on the streets had dropped from 200 to 15, improving the lives of local residents enormously.

"The authorities in Bolton need to change their attitude to the situation. Street prostitution isn't something you have to put up with - you can change things for the better."

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