POLICE community support officers have been given extra powers allowing them to hand out penalty notices.

The move from Lancashire Police’s chief constable Steve Finnigan is part of a plan to help reduce anti-social behaviour.

It means that once they have received new training, PCSOs will be able to issue notices for offences including causing harassment, buying alcohol for under-18s and breach-ing fireworks curfews without having to be helped by PCs, giving them more time to deal with more serious crimes.

The move has been welcomed by Kate Hollern, chairwoman of the police and crime panel for Lancashire, who said any new measures to tackle these types of offences had to be positive.

But she said she would be concerned if PCSOs were given more powers as it could be used as an excuse for cutting PC numbers.

Coun Hollern, who is also leader of Black-burn with Darwen Council, said: “The additional powers are very welcome at a neighbourhood level. But I would be nervous going forward if those powers were extended extensively. I would be concerned we would be having PCSOs replacing police officers and we need them for their expertise.”

However, Lancashire Police Federation rep-resentative Rachel Baines said it was important to make sure PCSOs were not a cheap alternative to police officers.

She said: “Our view is that we have got to be careful of giving PCSOs extra powers and turning them into cheap police officers. We need to ensure they are properly trained and equipped for any new powers, and that they are not taking over the role of police officers.”

Mr Finnigan could have chosen to extend PCSOs’ powers further by allowing them to detain suspects.

Clive Grunshaw, Lancashire’s police and crime commissio-ner, insisted the new powers were not a cost cutting measure. The force has already cut £60million from its budget, but another £20million of ‘savings’ still need to be found.

Mr Grunshaw said: “Anti-social behaviour is a real concern for many people and I support this extension of the powers of PCSOs to tackle it. This will free up police officers to tackle more serious crimes.”

A Lancashire Police spokesman added: “The aim of this is to allow PCSOs to deal with a wider range of anti-social behaviour incidents, for specified offences, without having to call upon police officers to assist with enforcement.”