POLICE were flooded with calls after terrified residents saw a man with a gun on a busy road in Ramsbottom.

But after police raced to the scene in the Stubbins Lane area they discovered the man was a soldier from the nearby Holcombe Moor Army Training Camp. And what was initially believed to be a machine gun turned out to be an unloaded rifle. The unnamed soldier has since been spoken to by his superiors after what the Army termed his "error of judgement". During the alert, which happened at 4.30pm on Wednesday of last week, police marksmen were put on standby. But officers scaled down the alert when they discovered the man was in the services.

The training camp is used by the Territorial Army, and the regular Army also use the facility for low-level tactical training and live firing.

Inspector Steve Clark of Bury police said that following the calls from worried members of the public, the force's helicopter and an armed response vehicle were put on standby.

"Everything swung into motion as if this was a real incident and threat. But once we were satisfied there were no safety implications, we stood down. Given what has happened, we've now entered into discussions with the Army."

An Army spokeswoman said: "This man is a regular soldier and he was in uniform and carrying a rifle which was not loaded. Earlier, he had been on a training exercise. When this incident happened, the exercise had finished and he was doing his own out-of-hours training. What happened was an error of judgement."