POLICE have been told to get out to emergency calls more quickly - by the Chief Constable.

The Government has set a target for officers to reach an emergency within 15 minutes in 90 per cent of all cases.

But Lancashire Constabulary is only getting to the scene within that time in 86 per cent of cases, down four per cent on last year.

And the Eastern Division, covering Blackburn, Darwen, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley was singled out by Chief Constable Steve Finnigan for "particularly struggling" with the target.

Officers in that division only get to emergency calls within 15 minutes in 82 per cent of cases.

Eastern Division bosses pledged to improve but stressed that they were one of the top performing divisions in the county.

The rural Ribble Valley patch is being blamed for adding onto emergency journey times.

In the Pennine Division, covering Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale, the figure is 88 per cent.

Speaking at the Police Authority Committee meeting Mr Steve Finnigan said: "Eastern Division is particularly struggling and we are in discussions with divisional commander David Mallaby to address the issue.

"I am not happy with anything that falls below 90 per cent.

"We need to take pressure off response officers to free them up."

Chief Inspector Terry Woods, from the Eastern Division, said the division was one of the top performing, with falling crime rates and "the best detection rates in the county".

But he said: "In this division alone, we respond to over 1000 emergency calls each month, a number of which frequently relate to the same incident.

"We are continually working towards providing an efficient high quality service to all of our communities and we understand that emergency response times are a crucial area of our business and one we are working to improve.

"Satisfaction levels for people who we deal with are at an all time high and we remain focused on improving our performance and service to the public to increase confidence in local policing."

A spokesperson for the division said: "We're only just below and it's because we're in such a rural area.

"We cover all the Ribble Valley and to get to some incidents, the milage is high.

"Sometimes the travelling times can be up to an hour."