'We are very angry'- Rivergate residents fed up of human waste and drug dealing issues blighting Peterborough city centre
Residents in Rivergate have raised serious concerns about growing level of anti-social behaviour right on their doorsteps.
Among the complaints residents have raised has been the levels of rough sleeping and drug dealing taking place in the area.
Among the starkest complaints from residents if human excrement being produced and left on the paths of Rivergate.
Residents of the Rivergate Leaseholders Association- which encompasses a total of 100 apartments over three blocks on the banks of the River Nene (Admiral, Burlington and Churchill houses) has now called for further action to be taken.
Richard Perkins, Secretary of the Rivergate Leaseholders Association said: “We have witnessed drug taking and drug dealing and been confronted with all of the left over needles in the area. All of this material has to be cleaned up at a cost to ourselves.
"There are no gates on the properties and even if there were, people could hop over the low wall. It would costs thousands to make it secure
"Unfortunately it is impossible to make secure the car parks and areas around the flats some of which have young children living there.
"We have even had people defecate in our car ports and it is on us to pay for a company to come and clean up their vomit and excrement. It it just appalling.
“It has been getting worse and worse, as well as of the graffiti and this is all coming together to drive the values of our properties down. People don’t want to move to an area where this is going on.”
Members of the association have praised the police for their help in the matter and for securing increased patrols in the area, which they say has helped to mitigate the problems to an extent but they still remain.
Association chairman Jencir Lee, who has lived Rivergate for over three years, added: “Residents have informed me that there have been problems here for over a decade.
"In winter time, there can be six or seven people sleeping in the car park and in the summer, as we are now, we find an increase in anti-social behaviour and the bodily fluids. The issue is almost constant.
“In the afternoons, we often see as many as 14 or 15 homeless people of suspected drug addicts gathering on the high street and around Viersen Platz.
"From March onwards, we also saw an explosion of littering in the car park and we have seen open drug deals taking place.”