WITH latest concerns about Bournemouth’s image, I would like to report the daily goings on where I reside.

From as early as 9am in the morning (when I first witness it), the area around Bournemouth’s Travel Exchange, where tourist arrive either by train, coach or even bus, is littered with drunks, drug users, beggars and prostitutes.

They are everywhere from exit/entrance to the rail station, Asda, the complex of Staples and Halfords, Holdenhurst and Wellington Road and St Swithuns Road, drinking ‘Strong Brew or White Lightening’. I see it every morning and day as I venture out to do my shopping, often trying hard to avoid them.

They sit on walls or benches daily to do what they do. Drink, solicit or beg. What amazes me more is that the council have gone to the trouble of putting up signs around the whole area stating that it is a ‘non-alcoholic’ area. Yet even with the police station not far away, the offenders choose to ignore that because it is just not policed. Many local and elderly residents, plus shopkeepers are not happy with the way the area is being run-down. It is certainly not a good impression that visitors get when first coming to Bournemouth, especially if they have young children. This area around the Travel Exchange has now become just as bad as Boscombe used to be.

The local council and the police really need to crack down on this before it gets really silly, if it hasn’t got there already.

I demand an answer from them why they are allowing this to daily occur. Are they really not that aware?

CHRISTINE PETERS, Bournemouth