A COUNCIL chief vowed today: "We must build bridges of confidence to beat Bolton's prostitution problem."

Cllr Frank White, chairman of the crime and disorder partnership, insists the police, social services and health authority must continue to work with Bolton's "red light" women, to try to beat the illegal sex trade.

All the agencies are already liaising closley to provide health care and advice for the town's prostitutes and police patrols are clamping down on kerbcrawlers.

But Cllr White says women walking Bolton's streets offering sex for sale still need to be educated about the risks associated with the sex business.

He said: "We don't seek to judge them from the moral high ground. We try to build bridges of confidence with the women and through that build more educational awareness.

"Hopefully we try to develop some self respect and responsibility for others and maybe the possibility of a different type of lifestyle."

This week, a special BEN investigation has lifted the lid on Bolton's seedy sex business revealing that even some career women are walking the streets to earn cash to feed drug addiction and boost low wages.

Cllr White added: "There are very different reasons for women from very different backgrounds to be on the streets. No one is doing it for pleasure. They're there for a multitude of reasons.

"You can never be satisfied if people are still forced into doing something that they don't really want to have to do."

Other Bolton prostitutes are risking their lives - with the threat of AIDS ever present - by offering unprotected sex for just £5 in a desperate bid to undercut their rivals to earn cash for drugs.

And Cllr White hit out at the kerbcrawlers who target the town's traditional red light district on Shiffnall Street and Breightmet Street, on the hunt for sex for cash.

He added: "I have seen punters picking these girls up in new cars which demonstrate that they come from a high income background.

"I have even seen a baby's pushchair in the back of one car. It proves that these kerbcrawlers have got families.

"If these people are insisting on unprotected sex it is putting their own partners at risk." Linked - drugs and the sex trade