Community workers are trying to broker a peacekeeping deal between two warring rival gangs.

A series of violent clashes have spilled onto the streets of Keighley.

Eleven men were arrested after a 15-man brawl in the Queen's Road area late last month and trouble has continued to flare this week.

Behind the scenes, an attempt is being made to bring a truce between a particular pair of gangs who call themselves the Top Enders and the Bottom Enders.

Staff at Keighley Asian Women's and Children's Centre Association and Manningham and Girlington Youth Partnership in Bradford have sought guidance from Peer Link, a national conflict resolution project, to work with young people caught up in gang culture.

They are persuaded to take part in training sessions in which role plays and residential trips explore how people can resolve issues before they incite episodes of violence.

Nazia Shah, of the Manningham and Girlington Youth Partnership, said: "There's no doubt there is a problem in Keighley.

"We approached the Women's and Children's Centre and they identified young people who would benefit from the work. They consented to coming down and joined staff at the centre on a residential training trip.

"Feedback was positive but they failed to turn up for the next session. Contact continues and we hope to re-engage them in the future.

"The idea was that we would work with the other gang at a neutral venue, put them through the training and bring them together at the end."

Insp Mark Allsop said: "The fight was between two groups of males in the area aged between 18 and 25 and we have contacted community leaders to help us to bring the situation under control.

"We stepped up patrols in the area to reassure the public and made house visits to some people to make sure there are no repercussions and further disputes."

Detective Inspector John Priestley, of Keighley CID, said there had been a string of linked incidents in Keighley since the brawl in Queen's Road.

He said: "The incident in Queen's Road was the first in a series of five. Monday night's was the most recent when there was an incident in Clover Street in the Knowle Park area involving damage to a motor vehicle.

"It would be fair to say there is a thread running through all these incidents. They are not spontaneous acts of violence, it's a linked ongoing problem between two rival groups.

"It's hard to say what the root of the problem is, but obviously we are investigating that."

Abdul Motin, a community worker at the Bangladeshi Community Association in Kensington Street, said people had come to him with concerns about spin-off disputes and there had been a bad atmosphere in the area.

He said: "It is a difficult one as you can imagine in any community when some people want to stay out of it but it affects us all, when arrests are made it creates tension for the whole area.

"It is not nice for any area to have a police presence, some people will take it as a positive thing but others as a negative."