SIX people have been banned from drinking in Skipton as part of a new initiative launched this week that aims to stamp out violence in town centre pubs.

Skipton Town Against Night-time Disorder (STAND) has timed its launch to coincide with the long Easter break.

And police and licensees announced at the launch on Monday that, under the new scheme, bans had been imposed on six people.

A further five people are already banned from some pubs under the old Pub Watch initiative run by the Skipton Licensees Association, and these exclusions will be incorporated into the STAND scheme.

The 11 banned people will receive a letter informing them of the decision.

Skipton police inspector Tad Nowakowski added that some of the bans were in connection with violent behaviour, while one was for suspected drug dealing.

The new STAND campaign is an extension of the former scheme and has been endorsed by all of the town's licensees, who have signed up to the new scheme.

The original suggestion came from Steve Birch, manager of Bliss nightclub, who had seen a similar project running successfully in Burnley.

The town's Multi-Agency Problem Solving Group adapted the scheme to work in Skipton.

The STAND scheme sets out guidelines on how anti-social behaviour in licensed premises can be dealt with.

In the future, anyone committing a serious violent attack against licensees, staff, other customers, or emergency services, which is related to drugs or alcohol will be arrested and taken into police custody.

Incidents can be inside the pub or in the vicinity of the premises.

The licensee will quickly meet with two colleagues who together will decide whether the offender should be banned immediately.

They will then inform the police who will convey this to the offender and photograph them.

The decision will be formalised at the licensees' monthly meeting when the length of the ban will be decided. The offender's photo will be circulated to all members to help them prevent any breaches the ban.

Where charges are brought, it is hoped that magistrates will support the ban by imposing their own exclusion order.

It is hoped the STAND scheme will eventually cover the whole of Craven, and deal with offenders who are also also violent towards taxi or bus drivers.

Insp Nowakowski added that he hoped the Skipton scheme could run in conjunction with similar projects in other places, such as Burnley, so that if an offender was banned from pubs in one town he or she was banned from premises in the other places.