FENCED OFF

FENCES ERECTED AROUND DISUSED SHOPS AMID PROBLEMS WITH ROUGH SLEEPERS, DRUG USERS AND STREET DRINKERS: 

- CARL EVE

FENCING has been put up in front of shops in Plymouth city centre because of problems with rough sleepers, drug users and street drinkers – with one couple even being caught having sex in an alleyway.

The two shop doorways, which sandwich the entrance of a covered pathway between New George Street and Courtney Street car park, has for the last few weeks been home to a series of tents and sleeping bags belonging to men and women who have, according to one trader, caused a disturbing amount of antisocial behaviour and has left him struggling to retain customers.

During an operation run by Plymouth’s city centre neighbourhood police team, Milad Mettrey, who has sold food from his mobile unit Fabulous Falafel for several years, said that over the past year he noticed a rise in the number people involved in antisocial behaviour in the area, and a drop in the number of customers who frequented his mobile kitchen.

He believes some of those causing trouble were linked to – but did not reside – at a nearby hotel, where a number of vulnerable people were being housed in emergency accommodation.

Milad said: “In 2014 when I set up it was a good business, but once that hotel set up, everything changed. I lost about half my business when people started turning up, drinking, taking drugs, hanging around and fighting close to my stand. Of course customers don’t want that while they are eating, customers don’t want to sit. It’s been very bad – it was getting so I couldn’t pay my rent [for the mobile unit].”