Pubs pilot 'safer' pint glasses

Trials are underway at secret pub locations across the country to test new safer pint glassware.

The Design Council this week confirmed that tests of products, which are designed not to shatter, were taking place in the trade in a range of sports bars, student venues and traditional pubs.

However a spokesman said details of the location or how many pubs were involved the trial was being kept under wraps.

The prototypes were initially launched in February after the Home Office set a brief to design companies to come up with a safer pint glass while avoiding polycarbonate and plastics, which have proved unpopular in the trade.

If the trials are successful it is believed the pint glasses could be more widely available in the new year.

The Home Office's Design and Technology Alliance Against Crime hope the new glassware will reduce the 87,000 violent incidents involving glass each year.

Jeremy Myerson, professor of design and Alliance member, said: "The progress being made is encouraging - now it is important to maintain the momentum. This is a really important issue to tackle."

And the move has been given a cautious welcome by licensees.

Nigel Jones, licensee of the Railway Hotel, Blandford Forum, Dorset, said: "There have been advances in glassware so it has to be worth looking at. If it is a good product and cleans as well as regular glass then it makes good sense.

"From a licensees perspective you would hope it is supported by the drinks manufacturers who would provide the glass to pubs."

But Joe Khalil, licensee of the Alexandra in Southampton, said the Home Office was not tackling the root of the problem.

"We would probably stock them but we do not have a problem with violence," he said.

"If people stopped serving drunks then we wouldn't need the glasses the Home Office is making."