POLICE monitoring Blackburn, Darwen and Hyndburn during the New Year festivities praised the majority of revellers for their good behaviour.

And they said that despite it being the first New Year's Eve after the 24-hour drinking laws came in to effect, there had not been an increase in trouble.

They said their forces were "stretched to the limit" due to the expected influx of people in the town centres hoping to see in 2006 but they added that it was like any other New Year's Eve.

Duty Inspector Claire Holbrook said: "We were extremely busy in the custody suite at Blackburn as we would expect on New Year's Day but people were generally arrested for minor assaults and other drink related offences.

"I don't think the new drinking laws have made a great deal of difference in terms of there being more trouble.

"Although despite being busy throughout the night at least it was staggered with people coming out of the pubs and clubs at different times.

"We didn't get the massive quantity of people on the street at the same time.

"In general most people were out enjoying the festive spirit in a good mood.

"Although I think there will have been a lot of thirsty people on New Year's Day and a lot of hangovers."

Inspector Simon Atkinson, force incident manager for the whole of Lancashire, said: "It was an extremely busy evening with all our resources stretched to the absolute limit in capacity but we managed to cope overnight.

"It was notable that our arrests started to increase from midnight onwards and we were still making arrests as late as 6am."