PAINTBALL games could be the answer to boredom and the eternal cry of "there's nothing to do" for teenagers in one county town.

They will be able to work off surplus energy by battling it out with guns and paintball pellets on a Saturday morning.

Upton-upon-Severn beat manager Mark Taylor hopes the first paintballing session on Saturday, January 31, will grab the interest of 13 to 16-year-olds and get them talking.

"I've been thinking about it for some time, because they have been saying during the summer that they are bored and have nothing to do," he said.

"If it is popular, we'll look at increasing the numbers we can take, but if we don't have a good response, we'll try something else."

With the backing of the town's rural safety group, he has arranged to take around a dozen youngsters by minibus to The March Hare at Broughton Hackett.

Notices have been put up around town and interested youngsters have already collected application forms from the Tourist Information Centre.

The cost, £5, has been kept to a minimum.

It is all part of a wider effort to engage youngsters in discussion about what they want to do, following complaints about gangs of youths congregating in the town centre.

Other ideas being considered include setting up youth shelters and a cyber caf.

Town mayor Eric White said one of the problems was getting young people to attend meetings of the rural safety group.

"It will be interesting to see how many of them take up the paintballing," he said.

"It's a question of getting them involved."

PC Taylor said the cyber caf and shelter projects had both been delayed by problems with finding suitable locations.

"The cyber caf would have to be fairly central and we would need somewhere with a peppercorn rent, plus volunteers to staff it," he said.

"If we put a shelter in the wrong place we will get complaints and we would have to get permission to put it on the flood plain. It is something I will be looking at later this year."