How drinking and drugs closed £150k seating area

Image caption, A £150,000 seating area in Dudley Market has been ripped out over anti-social behaviour

A £150,000 seating area has been ripped out just 16 months after opening due to due to anti-social behaviour.

It had been hoped that a covered seating area at Dudley Market would bring food trucks into the area and create a social hub to bring people into the town.

However, the food trucks and pop-ups never materialised, and the seating area became a magnet – traders say – for drinking, drug taking and other anti-social behaviour.

On Friday, the seating area was ripped out by Dudley Council. The local authority has been contacted for comment.

The BBC has heard from disgruntled traders and local residents who shared videos of incidents at the market, with traders saying they were having clean up drug paraphernalia and empty bottles.

"I'm glad they took it out. I felt like it's probably took longer than it should have," said Pete Westwood, who owns a doughnut business in the West Midlands town.

"With all the problems: anti-social behaviour, drug taking. [People] using it as a toilet. Not just for number ones, but number twos."

Image caption, Westwood said the seating area should have been removed earlier over anti-social behaviour concerns

Westwood said the anti-social behaviour had deterred local traders, with two leaving the market partially for those reasons, and he had turned down an offer to trade in the area even after being offered a space for free.

"I didn't think it'd be that great there, you know, I had a feeling there'd be groups of kids hanging about," he said.

"I definitely wasn't interested by them once I [had] seen what was happening there."

For Westwood, he believes the council and local traders should work more closely together to help each other.

"Make Dudley a great place, because obviously we've got a lovely shiny new bus station opening soon and what we don't want to do is have people come off it to go to the museum and see a town that they don't like or they wouldn't want to visit."

Image caption, Residents and traders have told the BBC the seats were often filthy and were covered in pigeon poo

For another trader, who asked to remain anonymous, said the seating area had created an issue for traders – especially in the late afternoon when the atmosphere could become "quite intimidating".

Drunk people and rough sleepers often congregated in the area, he said.

"To start with they'd leave us alone and then all of a sudden after they're drunk, they come around and start harassing you, looking at your stuff," he said.

"Now they've removed [the seating area], it seems like a different market [and] hopefully it'll bring people back to the area."

Local resident Ryan Green told the BBC he thought the area had been "pointless".

Image caption, Green said there was no incentive to use the area appropriately without any food trucks

"Personally, I thought it was a waste of time because it was vandalised every time," he said.

"It was always dirty. It was never clean. So why would people eat there if it was always filthy?"

He thinks more planning should have taken place to get food trucks in first, saying there was "no incentive" to use the seating area without them.

"I'd rather [the council] build the town up a bit more," he said, adding that without businesses like clothing shops "there's nothing for people really up here to get what they need".

Paul Chapman said he was strongly against the idea of the seating area and had seen people drinking, taking drugs, and dancing on the tables.

Image caption, Chapman said he had seen evidence of people drinking and taking drugs in the area

"It's a waste of time, waste of money, and a waste of effort. A bad idea. It was the wrong thing to do," he said.

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