Swansea once had a bustling high street boasting luxury boutique stores and packed pubs as the city fought to become UK City of Culture. But just 16 months later, business owners claim they have been driven out of the area by violence, gun crime, drugs and prostitution.
Unemployment and the internet has also put people out of business, with statistics from the year to September showing 6, people out of work. Work has begun to improve the street with the Urban Village development programme creating new retail and office space. But locals say it is currently a desolate arcade of boarded-up shops that has been overrun by sex workers scrapping it out for the best positions. Prostitution is legal in England and Wales but kerb crawling and soliciting is still against the law.
But in the 12 hours Sun Online monitored the area, no visible police cars or cops entered the squalid alleyway where the hookers conducted their business. Terrified locals now refuse to leave their homes after dark as the tentacles of violent crime continue to creep across the high street. One woman, who asked not to be identified, said she had not left her flat after dark for two years. They thought I was a prostitute. It isn't just residents who are being forced out of the area by crooks - with business owners left crushed by criminals.
Last year, 1, incidents were recorded by South Wales Police - reported as crimes - as cops say the figures show "the high level of demand" placed upon the force. These included a thug who battered a man in a pub by smashing him in the face with a pole and another yob who attacked two prostitutes. Gez Couch shut the doors on the historic White Swan pub just days ago after witnessing drugs, prostitution and violence on the streets outside the boozer became too much for him.
We have prostitutes regularly standing on the street, and there is violence. Another painted a harrowing picture of early morning drug deals as he complained no one is helping business owners. He told Sun Online: "My business is hanging on by a thread and I know of six that have folded in the past few months. Stamp on the prostitution, or move them elsewhere, and come down hard on the drugs problem.
