CALLS have been made for publicly-accessible sharps bins across the town centre in a bid to prevent drugs paraphernalia being left strewn around.

It comes a week after the Daily Echo reported rubbish and needles found at Dalkeith Steps and the former Bournemouth Magistrates’ Court car park.

Peter Moody, co-owner of Flirt cafe based in the Triangle, said that just last week a member of staff discovered a pipe and a lighter in their toilets as well as a discarded needle in the nappy bin.

“Out toilets are for customers only but what do you do when people come in desperate?” he said. “Anything like sharp bins are going to be helpful. The danger with people doing this is that they want to dispose of them there and then. Having a safer environment to put these things away is a better option. I feel the problem could get worse because of the current trend of closing public toilets,” he added. “I understand why they do so but it puts the onus on businesses to have toilets. The council has said they hope businesses will pick up the social responsibility. That puts a real pressure on us to do that.”

The manageress of Easy Tiger adult shop, who asked not to be named, said she put a poster up recently asking addicts to properly dispose of their needles rather than dump them in the alleyway behind the shop.

She said: “It is totally inhumane to throw dirty needles about. It’s a massive problem. They haven’t got a shortage of bins but they can’t be bothered to use them,” she said, speaking of the portable bins issued to registered drug addicts. “I don’t think they would want to put something in a public bin as it would show they are addicts.”

Steve Hughes, Bournemouth Town Centre BID manager, said: “[Drugs paraphernalia] is a problem throughout the town centre and we would like to see more action taken to do something about that but the police and council’s resources are stretched.”

Speaking of the Triangle, he added: “There does seem to be more drugs actually as well as begging and antisocial behaviour and we’re lobbying the council to do more to tackle that.

“It’s intimidating for shoppers and it’s making life quite difficult for businesses.”