POLICE are set to target a housing estate plagued by yobs.

Crisis talks took place on Thursday to try to stop gangs of anti-social teenagers ruining the lives of people on the 60-home Ormrod Street estate in Farnworth.

Residents say teenagers, some as young as 12, subject them to physical attacks, verbal abuse, missiles and constant vandalism.

Youngsters sitting in trees have fired air guns at them.

And they say a woman fled the area because youths pushed burning paper through her letterbox and pelted her with dog dirt.

Tensions ran high at a meeting of the Dixon Green Residents' Association at Thomas Garnett Court which was attended by police and officials from Bolton At Home, the organisation that runs council houses.

Police say there is a hardcore group of four or five youths who are responsible for the trouble.

Pc Paul Reed said: "It is our intention to clear this area of anti-social behaviour and all the idiots who are making people's lives a misery.

"But it's a long and drawn-out process."

The Brat Pack, as they are nicknamed, are harrassing residents in Heaton Avenue, Harrowby Street, Harrowby Lane, Westminster Avenue, Westminster Street abd Almond Street.

One resident said: "We need people who genuinely want to live on this estate, but it seems as if every drug user and alcoholic is being dropped on us. We are fighting a losing battle."

Bolton At Home is urging residents to inform it about incidents so it can build successful cases against offenders.

A spokesman said: "We are aware of the problems, but we need people to come forward and tell us what is happening."

One angry resident said: "The best thing for this estate now is to bulldoze it."

Another said: "We are frightened to do anything because if we step forward, we become targets."

Residents say they are also distressed by the behaviour of certain tenants who blast loud rave music out of windows until the early hours.