Tenants warn Howard that problem is just being moved around

CONSERVATIVE leader Michael Howard visited crack-hit council blocks in Camden Town on Tuesday morning and was warned that unsolved drug problems will not go away while addicts are being moved from estate to estate.
On his tour of the troubled Clarence Way estate with Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, Mr Howard heard residents voice concerns about addicts sleeping in stairwells and urinating on their doorsteps.
The point was hammered home when the tour came across two men sleeping in a makeshift bed made of discarded newspapers in an estate corridor.
Pauline Brown, who has lived on the estate for 23 years, said: “I was mugged on the estate. They got the man who pinched my purse but it makes you worried.
“You are always thinking: is somebody going to jump out of the lift at you? There has always been a problem but it gets worse when they (drug addicts) come from other estates.”
Another tenant, Glynis Davis, wondered what the politicians would do to help. “You hear them say this and that on television but you have to see what happens,” she said.
“But Michael Howard was clearly interested in what we were saying and wanted to listen to us.”
Residents told of being spat on by addicts, having eggs and fat thrown at their doors by vandals and being kept up all night while boy racers used the estate as a “mini-Brands Hatch”.
Silla Carron, chairwoman of the estate’s tenants’ and residents’ association, said there had been improvements, but the problem of displacement – addicts moving from one estate to another – had not been cracked.
“Nobody is addressing the displacement,” she said. “I’m not unhappy with what Camden has done here. The anti-social behaviour orders are working. We are working well with the police.
“But this is happening all over the country. We have had it bad over the last couple of weeks, which means over the road they will be having a rest. It goes both ways. You clean it up here, it goes across the road. It is being moved around and around. It’s not acceptable.”
During his 45-minute tour, Mr Howard declined to take questions from journalists but said: “Drugs do great damage to our society. They ruin lives, they fuel crime and innocent people and the communities they live in suffer so much harm as a result.
“We could and should be doing much more to deal with this.”
The Conservatives’ new action plan for beating drugs includes preparing more prison places for addicts who refuse rehabilitation.
A press official working for the Tory chief later said that Clarence Way had been chosen to showcase Conservative policy because measures to tackle anti-social behaviour had not worked there.
“From what we have seen today, there clearly still is a problem,” he said.
It is the third time leading Tories have descended on the estate in the past 18 months, with Mr Howard’s visit following tours by Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin and former mayoral candidate Steven Norris.
Camden Town’s Labour ward councillor Jake Sumner said: “Drugs is a complex issue to tackle and the Tories do not have any answers.
“Under Howard (as Home Secretary in the 1990s) crime rocketed. I prefer to look at Camden solutions of working with the community.
“Anyone can come and have a look, even Michael Howard. There are problems but Camden is investing a lot in community safety, community facilities and wardens.
“We are making Camden safer.”