Police say they are working with residents to tackle issues on street with used drug needles littering the floor

Officers are working with residents and councillors to tackle drug and anti-social issues in a street which has been labelled as ‘unsafe’ by people living their, police have said.

Residents living in Green Lane, Millfield reported six months ago that drug dealing and anti social behaviour was making their lives a misery.

They said used they were forced to pick up used drug needles from the floor in a bid to keep youngsters safe, and police would not attend when issues were reported.

This week, they said that despite reporting the issues, nothing had changed since October.

Resident Silvana Petzold said: ““Since December I’ve reported prostitution and the police didn’t show up. I’ve reported a drug dealer as he was still there on the carpark but no one showed up.

"We have drug addicts sitting on the corner of Green Lane and Dogsthorpe Road as early as 8am.”

Today, Inspector Karl Secker from Cambridgeshire police said officers were ‘aware’ of the problems in the street, and the force had launched ‘Operation Siphon’ in a bid to tackle problems across the Millfield area of the city.

He said: “We are aware of the issues mentioned in Green Lane and are working with the council and partners to address these. We understand the disruption that these behaviours can have on local residents and neighbourhood officers are working to reduce and tackle offending in the area.

“This has been shown with our joint operation with the council called Op Siphon. In the past 12 months we have completed the following:

225 fixed penalty notices issued for parking offences 90 penalty charge notices issued for parking offences 32 traffic offence reports issued 98 people stop-searched 12 people arrested six warrants for drugs offences 10 vehicles stop-searched 15 vehicles seized eight people cautioned 12 people given words of advice two fixed penalty notices issued for littering offences

“We ask the public to continue to report any information relevant to the above issues to us. The more information we have, the better picture we can build and the more efficient we can be at targeting those responsible. Reports or concerns can be made via web chat: https://bit.ly/3vsiYDw via our online forms at www.cambs.police.uk/report or by calling 101.”