NORTH Yorkshire Police chiefs have welcomed plans to raise the minimum age of buying knives and replica firearms.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has pledged to ban under-18s from purchasing potentially dangerous knives and lifelike toy guns if Labour wins a third term in office.

The promise came as part of new proposals that could also see extra drug testing for offenders, more community support officers and a "three strikes and you're out" rule for those involved in drunken violence.

Senior police officers in the force, including York and Selby area commander Chief Superintendent Tim Madgwick, have already called for replica guns to be banned.

Earlier this month, York MP Hugh Bayley asked the Home Office to consider whether samurai swords should be added to the list of banned weapons.

North Yorkshire trading standards bosses said they are concerned at the type of knives that can be bought by youngsters in shops and over the internet.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said senior officers "welcome the proposals very strongly".

He said: "Replica firearms are the bane of this force's life. Quite simply, they represent an awful accident waiting to happen.

"Every day of every year, North Yorkshire Police is forced to call out armed officers because someone has seen someone in public with what looks like a gun. It's a recipe for disaster.

"It's true to say that in the vast majority of incidents time is wasted, tensions are raised and public fears are aroused for no reason."

He said that the bid to increase the knife-buying age will do "some good", but will not block access to all dangerous knives.

He said: "It makes the point that particularly those 'boy's toys', big, spectacular so-called hunting knives, should be restricted because they appeal to personalities who are sometimes less than mature.

"The fact is, that wherever you go in North Yorkshire, the odds are strongly against your camp being attacked by a fully-grown grizzly bear."

In recent months, the Government has been lobbied by relatives of stabbing victims who want to put knife crime on a par with gun crime.

The Knives Destroy Lives campaign, which includes the parents of murdered Lincolnshire schoolboy Luke Walmsley, want a minimum five-year jail term for anyone found carrying a knife longer than three inches.

Chief Supt Madgwick called for a ban on replica firearms after an armed stand-off between police and former York man David Roustoby.

Mr Roustoby, who sparked the siege by showing a 16-year-old a replica pistol, has since told the Evening Press that anyone who owns such a toy should "throw it away".

Updated: 08:56 Friday, March 11, 2005