Shropshire youngsters buying booze on the internet to be delivered direct to their doorstep is a major “worry” and needs to be stamped out, a councillor has told a meeting.

Councillor Tony Durnell, Shropshire councillor for Monkmoor, said children were taking advantage of pre-paid debit cards from supermarkets to buy alcohol online as few checks were in place to quiz buyers.

Some retailers are weak at verifying exactly who they were selling to and how old they were, it is feared.

Councillor Durnell said: “These youngsters are getting older friends of people they approach on the street to go into supermarkets and load £20 on a store card.

“They then go onto the internet and order the booze to be delivered when their parents are out, which is a worry.”

The claims come as councillors in the county backed plans to create a new pilot Community Alcohol Partnership scheme to cut down on under-age boozing.

Under the new scheme, which was backed at a meeting of Shropshire Council’s strategic licensing committee yesterday, selected youngsters will be made to look older than they really are and encouraged to use fake ID in a bid to crack down on rogue pub landlords who sell booze to children.

Trading standards is set to use the new techniques in a bid to cut down on under-age drinking in the county.

Under the scheme, trading standards officers will carry out test purchases in pubs and clubs as opposed to the current testing in off-licences.

Frances Darling, of trading standards, told the committee a new approach was needed to catch out those who sold alcohol to youngsters. She said: “When we started test purchasing in off-licences the strike rate was about 50 per cent, but now it is down to about 11 to 12 per cent and we can’t see this changing.

“Therefore we want to come into the pubs and clubs to test and in certain cases use our powers to make the 17-year-olds we are going to use for test purchases to look older and use fake forms of ID to ensure pubs are doing what they are supposed to.”

By Andrew Morris