Terrified locals have found used needles, condoms and even human faeces outside their homes. Sign up for our daily newsletter to get the day's biggest stories sent direct to your inbox. In the shadow of Manchester city centre, gangs of brazen drug dealers have been peddling crack cocaine and heroin in plain sight. Each day, waves of homeless people descend on the streets of Beswick and Miles Platting to get their hands on class A drugs. The bleak reality being played out on Manchester's streets has emerged following an undercover operation to smash the gangs who were living "Love Island lifestyles", which saw 17 arrested yesterday.
Dawn raids were carried out after an eight-month police investigation into drugs being sold openly on streets between Piccadilly and the Etihad Stadium. Officers posed as drug users to buy crack and recorded the deals. Detectives say they 'have never seen drug dealing so brazen and unchallenged' in the city before.
One of the streets taken over by dealers is Palmerston Street, which stretches from the city centre to the estates of Beswick, the M. Tucked away amid the swanky developments in Ancoats and New Islington, it feels a world away. Flanked by overgrown woodland, its secluded location and close proximity to the city's homeless population were ideal for dealers intent on peddling misery. Yet families living on a nearby housing estate say they are being subjected to a daily "nightmare" which has left them afraid to let their children out.
Yvonne Kearney and Paul Cassidy live in Ancoats Grove with their two young children - just yards from where dealers and sex workers congregate. You see the prostitutes getting served all the time. The other night there was a girl coming down the street shouting that she needs a pipe. We've got two kids and I don't want them seeing things like that.
People are fed up. It's a nice area, it's just what creeps out of the city centre. Locals say dealers and sex workers gather outside the abandoned River Inn pub close to Palmerston Street's junction with Ancoats Grove. It is not uncommon for people to find used needles, condoms and even human faeces outside their homes. When the M. One father, who asked not to be named, said he regularly faced questions from his young son about what was going on on the street outside. They argue with people living here who are not happy with the noise.
