SOUTH Hams MP Dr Sarah Wollaston is calling for tighter regulations on selling alcohol online as teenagers take to the web to buy drink.

A new report by independent auditors of underage sales Serve Legal and Plymouth University, warns that online alcohol sales and purchasing by friends and family are creating a 'significant and emer-ging battleground in the fight against underage drinking'.

The report indicates that high street retailers have become significantly better at checking the age of potential underage drinkers in recent years.

In 2007 the ID of teenage mystery shoppers attempting to buy alcohol from retailers or pubs was checked just over half of the time (55 per cent).

By 2010, ID was checked in more than seven in 10 cases (71 per cent).

However, the report warns that while greater vigilance by retailers has helped reduce alcohol consumption among you-ng people, it has also prompted a shift in the way underage drinkers are getting hold of alcohol.

Online retailers are identified as a key potential source for underage drinkers, presenting a window of opportunity for those underage looking to circumvent the stricter alcohol policies now in place in many high street retailers.

Researchers uncovered a number of websites that sold alcohol where there was either no discernible age-check policy or a simple disclaimer noting that the consumer needed to be over 18 to complete the purchase.

This week Dr Wollaston said she would be asking the Home Office for tougher action against under-age sales of alcohol stating that it was 'clearly unacceptable' and action needed to be taken.

Dr Wollaston has been campaigning for an end to 'our binge drinking culture' since she arrived in Westminster and has said that tackling retailers will only work if you also tackle the issue of parents and siblings supplying alcohol.

Dr Adrian Barton, of Plymouth University, said: 'Most underage drinkers realise that it's now not that easy to walk into a shop to buy alcohol.

'This factor, added to more relaxed attitudes toward alcohol consumption by parents and relatives, added to the growth of the internet, is creating a perfect storm in the battle against underage drinking.

'The report should give plenty of food for thought for anyone involved in reducing underage drinking.'