PUBS and clubs in Dorchester will soon be on the same wavelength with the launch of a new radiolink scheme.

Members of the town's Pubwatch scheme are signing up to a batch of radios so they can maintain contact with each other to head off trouble before it arrives.

Funding secured from the Crime and Disorder reduction Partnership by Insp Les Fry will enable Pubwatch premises to have a discount to buy or hire radios.

Ryan Bransome, senior licensing officer with West Dorset District Council, said the radios would form part of the successful town traders' radiolink system.

Insp Fry urged pubs and clubs to join.

He said: "You would be united and it's easier to turn people away when there's trouble. You're in contact quickly and can alert each other before troublemakers move on to other premises.

"We can't insist that premises have radios but we would like those places in the town centre to have them. And the more that do have them the better the system works.

"Ideally it should be started and in place by Christmas."

Mark Fuller, of Bojangles in Trinity Street, supported the move for radios.

He said: "I've used these in Weymouth and they're very good. You can contact each other so quickly that anyone causing trouble at one place is turned away before they're even at door of the next place."

Mr Bransome said: "Radiolink would be used in conjunction with CCTV.

"Pubwatch members visited the control room in Weymouth to see how the cameras are used in Dorchester and they were impressed with what they saw. We can definitely get a radiolink system in place in Dorchester before Christmas and that's got to be a good thing."

Radiolink has been in use in Dorchester as a Chamber of Commerce scheme to help traders tackle shoplifting and other crime.