BEMUSED Hawkshead residents found themselves defending the serenity of their idyllic streets after a national news report made the village sound like a gangsters' paradise, reports Jennie Dennett.

A Daily Mail story about the rapid closure of Britain's police stations reported that "street fights and bad behaviour had become the norm" since the home of Hawkshead's bobbies was converted into flats in 1999.

It quoted a resident complaining that there used to be more order at closing time and that there were regularly drunk teenagers "milling around street corners, fighting and making noise".

But locals failed to recognise the correspondent's characterisation of the mean streets of Hawkshead, whose cobbled thoroughfares are more usually described as quaint or picturesque.

See News - Lakes Towns for the full story.