Surge in anti-social behaviour in Chesil multi-storey car park in Winchester

The Chronicle has seen footage from the Chesil Street stack shows clear signs of Class A drug misuse, widespread graffiti and criminal damage to doors and lighting.

The video was shot by local man Chris Thomson who said he wanted to highlight the issue.

Mr Thomson walks his dogs there and has noticed a sharp rise in anti-social behaviour especially on the top two floors, which without lights are now vary dark at night: "I was shocked and disturbed to see how bad it is. It's frustrating to see this again and again. I have kids. This needs to be publicised.

"The drug paraphernalia was there on Thursday and was there for four days over the weekend," he said.

The graffiti is fresh although there are clear signs that previous tagging has been painted over by the city council.

Chris Thomson (Image: Chris Thomson)

City council leader Martin Tod was asked about the general graffiti problem at the Council meeting last Wednesday evening. He said: "I am a bit obsessed about the question of graffiti. This afternoon we gathered together council officers, police, the Youth Offending Team, and BID to talk about how to work better together dealing with graffiti."

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Cllr Tod said graffiti "exploded following the pandemic" but that the council was spending more money tackling the issue. He said the BID had "four people spending four days a week on graffiti. We clean the whole of Chesil (multi-storey) every day. We have to remove graffiti almost every day."

The evidence from the Mr Thomson video is that graffiti is not being cleared every day.

But Cllr Tod added: "Just throwing more resources is not going to solve the problem. The evidence is within the city we seem to have got on top of it. But in general it remains a serious issue."

He said intervention was needed with those graffiti perpetrators, many of whom are children, to divert them away from the crime."

A council spokesperson said: “We are aware and are concerned by the increase in anti-social behaviour in Chesil Street car park and are working in partnership with the police and other agencies to address this situation more robustly.

"The council’s neighbourhood services team are trained in the safe removal of drug related equipment and it is given the highest priority. These items have been removed from the car park and officers have been in touch with the resident to offer assurance that we are taking action – we are looking into this particular reporting situation as to why it wasn’t actioned at the speed in which it usually would be.  We would encourage anyone who witnesses anything of concern to contact the Police on 101 and to report via our website, or by calling 01962 840222.”

Chris Thomson (Image: Chris Thomson)

In a statement, Cllr Tod said: “I’m very aware of the vandalism and other problems at Chesil Street car park and other locations in the city – and met the police, council officers and other services last Wednesday to discuss the extra steps we are going to take to deal with it.  It’s at the highest level that anyone can remember – and we’ve agreed a robust plan which reflects that.

"We currently have a graffiti removal team going into Chesil four days a week – as well as daily cleaning.  We are also working through CCTV footage with the police so that the offenders can be identified and appropriate action taken. We are planning on extra CCTV and targeted visits from council staff and the police at this and other affected sites until the problem is dealt with.”

See the video and more photos on hampshirechronicle.co.uk