City community where drug users are passed out in the street demands change

There are many things that residents in Cardiff's Riverside love about their community. However, over the years they say crime, drugs and fly-tipping have got out of hand. Local democracy reporter Ted Peskett reports

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THE night is closing in outside the Cardiff Bangladesh Centre as a father tells the hushed crowd inside about the times he's had to weave past drug users lying on the street whilst taking his child to school.

The man addressing his fellow residents is one of a number of people in Riverside that night who tell the gathered local councillors, council officials and police officers there about the problems they come up against time and again in their community.

There is a pattern with some of the problems that are reeled off, sometimes in turn, sometimes all at once as the frustration of the situation the community finds itself in begins shows through.

People told their own stories about “blatant and brazen” drug dealing, antisocial behaviour, random household items like fridge freezers left on pavements and black bin bags piling up.

As if those gathered to hear these concerns needed further proof that something needs to be done, a mouse could be seen running under a chair as one councillor tried to explain how they were trying to get a handle of the situation.

Two themes above all else seem to stand out - ‘why is it us that has to put up with these issues when, just a short walk across the River Taff in the city centre or just up the road in Pontcanna, things seem so different?’ and ‘why are these problems allowed to repeat day after day seemingly without any consequences?’

One local councillor who was there to share his thoughts, Cllr Kanaya Singh, said the issue of drugs in his ward is “off the charts” and added that drug dealing and drug taking is happening on “nearly every corner of Riverside”.

A resident recounted his own experience of having to walk down Coldstream Terrace where there is “regular drug use” and people “lying on the floor taking crack”.

Others chip in with their own tales of windows being smashed and arguments and screaming taking place in the middle of the night.