SHOPPING centre chiefs are launching a pioneering scheme to protect children from abduction.

Safechild, an initiative to minimise the risk for young children who become separated from their parents in public places, will run in and around Burnley's Charter Walk Shopping Centre.

The NSPCC-inspired scheme is only the third of its kind in the country.

Representatives from town centre organisations and businesses, including Wilkinsons, TJ Hughes and Tesco, are backing the scheme.

Chris Gribben, general manager of Charter Walk, said Safechild would get all town centre agencies - from businesses, to managers, to police and wardens - to put together a joint action plan ensuring the swift and safe return of missing children.

Parents and children will also be educated to reduce the risk.

The initiative should be in place around the centre, including the market and the bus station, by mid November. It will spread to the rest of the town after Christmas.

Mr Gribben, 43, worked for the company which owned Bootle's Strand Shopping Centre from where Jamie Bulger was abducted in 1993 by 10-year-olds John Venables and Robert Thompson.

He said: "Following the abduction and murder of Jamie Bulger, I think there was a feeling shopping centres and town centres had to do more to make sure such incidents never happened again.

"Ten years, on the strength of feeling is still so fresh in everyone's mind."

Lisa Durkin, town centre manager said in July and August more than 50 youngsters respectively went temporarily missing from the town centre.

She said: "As a community we can minimise and reduce the incidents of children going missing."