A once-bustling seaside town has been named as the worst place in the UK for anti-social behaviour. Clacton-on-Sea, a popular resort that once attracted thousands of tourists every year, now has an ASB rate of 68 incidents per every 1,000 residents, compared to the UK average of just 17, reports the Sun.
Locals report the town has recently fallen to 'ruins' with used cans of nitrous oxide – referred to as "hippy crack" – littering the streets and graffiti scrawled across empty shopfronts. Vanessa Bedford, who lives in the nearby town of Frinton, said thugs have attacked her son during his shifts at McDonald's.
She said: "He got thrown down the stairs because he refused to give some kids free ketchup."
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And Ms Bedford said it is not just her son who's been a victim – the 36-year-old mum said she rarely goes into town now to avoid attacks. "I've been threatened with a knife for telling a group of kids to stop harassing an old lady," she said.
Figures from Crime Rate UK show that in 2022, the seaside town saw 646 arson attacks, 296 shoplifting incidents and 3,221 violent and sexual offences reported. Another local, kebab shop employee Alex Evans, said she doesn't feel safe walking home alone at the end of her shifts thanks to frequent fighting, especially at weekends.
She said: "I've lived here for four years and it's steadily got worse and worse."
Meanwhile, taxi driver Spike Spencer said there was a "nasty atmosphere" around the centre of town.
"[There is] lots of shouting, swearing and kids chasing women. We don't get a lot of stabbings and stuff but it's just not nice to be in a place you feel frightened," he said.
It's not the only seaside town to be plagued with crime, Newquay, in Cornwall faces a dangerous drug epidemic. County lines gangs reportedly flood its shores with heroin, crack, cocaine and cannabis, reports the Mirror. Devon and Cornwall Police seized 18.7kg of cocaine in the year to March 2022 – up from 16.2kg the year before - while ketamine seized rose from 0.3kg in 2021 to 1.8kg last year, Home Office figures show.
Dave Farrow, who moved from Norfolk to Newquay in 1983 and worked as a club doorman when the licensing laws changed to allow pubs to remain open into the early hours, said he has seen huge change in town.
"In those days people would often come out at 10pm or later, they’d be already drunk and wanting to party, and it would get quite messy. It was the party capital at that point and the streets were packed with groups of young people," Dave, who now runs Karma Surfboard shop, told The Sun.
"As a doorman I saw all sorts. I remember opening a toilet cubicle, the floor would be flooded in urine, but they’d be snorting cocaine and kneeling in it, because they were so out of it. Now the drug problem here is different. There are areas of Newquay which have become synonymous with drugs."
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