A VOLUNTARY registration scheme aimed at tackling bike thefts in Hartlepool is already proving a success just weeks after its launch.

About 150 log books have already been issued in a drive to help youngsters protect their bikes.

Details such as a bike's make and model, colour, frame size and number, wheel size and any distinguishing accessories can be recorded in the log books and retained by the owner for future reference.

Hartlepool Borough Council, Cleveland Police, Hartlepool Community Safety Partnership and the Hartlepool Crime Prevention Panel are working together on the scheme. Copies of completed log books are also being stored on a database by the council's road safety officer, Paul Watson.

He said: "The response to the log books has been brilliant. We had dozens of telephone calls after the scheme was initially publicised."

It is now intended to target all of the town's primary schools by staging assemblies, where the log books will be distributed to pupils.

Facchini's bike shop, in Murray Street, is backing the scheme by giving out the log books with the bikes and scooters it sells. Other shops are hoped to follow suit.