By Carmelo Garcia – Local Democracy Reporter
There are calls to ban heroin addicts and drunks from Gloucester amid fears it is scaring away visitors to the city centre.
Concerns over widespread street drinking and drug use were raised at Gloucester City Council’s meeting last night.
Councillor Andrew Bell (Community Independents, Grange) said there was a particular problem at Longsmith Street car park.
He said a friend of his works there who is “frightened to death about going there every day.”
“She has to open up in the morning and in the dark,” he said. “It has to be two of them.
“They are injecting heroin in the children’s area. I’d like to thank the previous administration for the Forum and the Liberal administration for the new development that we are going to see over there.
“But people aren’t going to come here if these people are on our streets. I don’t want to see engagement, I want to see them out of the city. That’s going to have to be done otherwise people won’t come here.
“Let’s get the people to come here. But if they can’t park their car because people are taking heroin in the children’s area or smoking balloons or whatever they do.
“We’ve got to do something about it. These people need bring in barring from the city centre again. These people need banning from the city centre because if they aren’t high they are drunk. And we don’t need it.”
Community engagement cabinet member Rebecca Trimnell (LD, Westgate) said more work needs to be done with the issue.
She said she knows there are issues and the council is working on a plan involving more engagement to deal with the problem.
“I know where people do drugs, I speak to a lot of them,” she said. “Don’t get me wrong it is a problem.
“I’m not enforcement led but engagement led. I’m not one of these people who think we should get rid of these people from our streets. At the end of the day they are human beings, they’ve got problems and we need to help them.
“We can’t expect all of this work to be done by city protection officers. She said she is working with officers to find a way forward.
She said a plan would be revealed in the New Year. “Just bear with us,” she said.