SHOPKEEPERS are to be taught the moral and legal responsibilities of selling alcohol in a bid to crack down on under-age drinking in Burnley.

The specialist training scheme for anyone involved in the sale of booze will be the first of its kind outside Manchester and is part of a £50,000 package of measures to tackle anti-social behaviour in the borough.

Every off-licence owner in the Burnley area is being invited to take part in two two-hour training sessions with an Alcohol and Drug Service trainer and a police officer.

They will make clear the legal and moral responsibilities involved in selling alcohol to the public.

Bosses in charge of community safety at Burnley Council decided to use the Home Office cash to tackle under-age drinking after learning of an original scheme prioneered in Manchester.

Melva Burton, the council's community safety manager, said that although there was no specific data for alcohol-related nuisance, police have made it clear it is a large factor in the occurrence of disorder.

The training sessions for off-licence owners and other drink-related shop staff will begin in late November in time for Christmas when alcohol sales traditionally rise.

Organisers stress the sessions will not be a classroom-type lesson and will be made as attractive as possible to off-licence owners.

The move comes just 24 hours after 20 special constables took to the streets of Burnley in a high-profile blitz on teenage tearaways.

Melva said: "Alcohol is one of the main causes of anti-social behaviour among young people. They get their hands on alcopops or whatever and start behaving badly as a result.

"But we need to tackle this problem from all angles -- it is not just the young people and the individuals whose lives their behaviour affects, shopkeepers also have a responsibility to ensure that they are not selling alcohol to young people."

The scheme has received support from off-licences.

Norma Howard, who has run the Howard's Village Shop in Church Square in Worsthorne for 16 years, said: "I think it's a good idea if people can hear different ideas about under-age drinking.

"It's a hard job sometimes to find out whether they are the right age or not."

Linda Crossley, from the Alcohol and Drug Service in Lancashire, which is running the sessions, said: "We will be training people who have off licences on the legal aspects of selling alcohol, such as they can't sell to people who are under 18 and they can't sell to people who are buying on behalf of under 18-year-olds.

"We will look at the consequences of breaking the law and if they are caught breaking the law.

"The sessions will also look at the damage that alcohol can do to young people and will look at the fact that a lot of street disorder is caused by young people drinking and alerting people to that fact."

The sessions will first target Hapton and Padiham shopkeepers before moving on to the rest of Burnley.

Other borough-wide measures being funded by the Home Office cash include a safer neighbourhoods grant scheme, for small community safety projects set up by voluntary groups, and a radio campaign about anti-social behaviour, which will be driven by Burnley school children.

Melva said: "This is the first pot of money that has been offered specifically to tackle anti-social behaviour, which reflects the Government's concern about the impact it is having on people's lives - some people's lives are being blighted by it.

"To bid for a share of the funding, Burnley's Community Safety Partnership went for a programme that had a number of prongs to it, so that the money could be used to make more of a difference."

The scheme has received support from off-licences.

The Streetwise programme, which has already been operating in areas popular with young people, has been given £7,000 to continue its work.