CAR owners on an estate were today counting the cost of a tyre slashing spree.

Residents woke to find more than 30 cars had been targeted by vandals on six neighbouring streets.

Even cars belonging to a couple who have installed CCTV cameras outside their home did not escape.

The AA and RAC were bombarded with phone calls as householders found their vehicles immobilised because more than one tyre had been slashed.

Vehicles in Park Road, Kirk View, Booth Crescent, Piper Lea, Low View and Edgeside Lane in Waterfoot were targeted.

In the Bacup, Stacksteads, Waterfoot and Whitworth areas there are normally six crimes a day -- but the crime rate more than trebled just with incidents reported from Edgeside. It is believed a craft knife was used to slash the tyres on almost every other vehicle.At one house in Park Road eight tyres were slashed on two vehicles.

Joyce Hamer and her husband Ted of Piper Lea found two tyres on their Ford Granada slashed. Joyce said: "We usually have the closed circuit TV on but we did not have it switched on last night."

Thomas Perry, 66, of Low View, had all four tyres slashed on his Rover 214. He said: "I didn't go to bed until turned 2am and I never heard a thing. Maria and John Buck had been looking forward to using their new caravan for the first time this weekend until the vandals slashed two of its four tyres.

Maria, of Low View said: "We can't afford to replace them and they will have to be specially ordered.

"If I got hold of who did this I would hang them."

By lunchtime yesterday 10 people had been to Rossendale Exhaust Centre, Bacup Road, Cloughfold, with slashed tyres.

Crimestoppers is offering a reward of up to £500 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible.

Crimestoppers can be contacted on 0800 555 111 or Burnley police on 01282 425001.