I TOTALLY agree with Chris Colledge, chairman of the West Cliff Residents Association (Danger warning as 50 syringes found, Daily Echo, 27 October) who has called for syringe disposal bins to be removed from public toilets and for the installation of CCTV cameras in locations where drug users and peddlers congregate.

The provision of needle disposal bins is just another example of the way that authorities now prefer to treat the symptoms of antisocial behaviour rather than tackle the problem itself.

They might as well stick up a notice inviting drug addicts to shoot-up whenever and wherever they like.

Providing addicts with such facilities condones what they are doing.

This is the same kind of topsy-turvy thinking that led to some bars and pubs replacing traditional glasses with plastic following a spate of ‘glassing’ attacks in the town.

All too often defence lawyers use drug addiction, or alcoholism, as an excuse for crimes – and more often than not the bewigged buffoons who purport to dispense justice go along with it and impose ludicrously inadequate punishment or, increasingly, no punishment at all other than community service.

It’s time we stopped listening to the politically-correct brigade of loony, lefty liberals whose softly, softly approach to crime and antisocial behaviour has brought us to the sorry pass that we now find ourselves in.

ROBERT READMAN, Norwich Avenue West, Bournemouth