HORRIFIED workers hope the council step up patrols in the Parade car park area after many have walked back to their vehicles after a day's work only to find people taking a dump next to them.

The startling revelations have come to light after several workers in and around the Parade car park, including those based in nearby Alexander House, have complained in their masses to the council about the mess left behind by a number of homeless people.

One worker said: “It’s disgusting, the car park is being used as an area where people are defecating everywhere.

“Neither the council or the police are doing anything despite it being regularly reported. The people congregating have chairs and other furniture and are just sitting there – the whole place smells like a urinal.

“It is not the fact they are having a wee, which the smell you can ignore to an extent, but they are defecating next to people’s cars.

“At one point, I found a man just getting up from a squat position having had a dump next to my car.”

The Adver first reported that homeless people started to gather at a number of the town centre car parks, including the Parade, this time last year.

Many have set up camp beds and mattresses while others have littered the car parks with discarded bottles, rubbish and drug paraphernalia as visitors go to work or to visit the shops.

But now, workers believe the problem is getting worse despite making repeated attempts to complain to the council and police.

The worker added: “There are all sorts of businesses here but we can’t recommend for them to park there and have that to deal with. It has been reported repeatedly to the council and it must have been caught on CCTV with all the cameras around. It is beyond disgusting and something needs to happen.

“We’ve spoken to the police as well who said they don’t have any power to do anything and we’ve even said to the council come out here and take a look for themselves.

“It is intimidating to walk to your car when it is dark. It is not that they are being aggressive but if you say to them nicely not to use this area as a toilet, their response is that we can’t stop them and so they’ll continue to do it. Because no one at the police or the council is taking ownership of it, the problem is just getting worse.”

A Swindon Borough Council spokesman said: “We are aware of the increased presence of homeless people in the Parade Car Park, encouraged by the warmer weather, and their unacceptable behaviour.

“We are working hard to tackle the problem. Our trained housing officers are seeking to engage with them to reduce the incidence of homelessness, and we have deployed extra cleaning patrols to the area. We continue to work closely with police and other partners to achieve a long term solution to homelessness and vagrancy in the borough."

The Swindon Advertiser's view:

THE situation at the car park in The Parade is degrading for all concerned.

It is degrading for the members of the public who are obliged to use the car park and find themselves beginning and ending their working days in what amounts to an open-air latrine.

It is also degrading for the homeless people who, it seems, have little option but to relieve themselves in public.

Urine and excrement are vessels of disease, as well as attracting insects and other vermin which are themselves vessels of disease.

These truths are hardly shocking revelations, as they have been common knowledge at least since the 19th century and prompted the mass implementation of hygienic sewerage systems.

Quite why little or nothing appears to have been done to address the problem is a mystery.

The placing of temporary toilet facilities by the borough council would hardly be a major expense or daunting feat of engineering.

Failing that, as far as we are aware, using a public place as a toilet is a criminal offence — as many a late night reveller caught short has discovered.

Obviously, police action would merely move the problem to other parts of the town, which leaves only two sensible options.

One is to provide a readily accessible toilet at the site of the problem, and the other is to make a better effort to address the issues which bring people on to the streets in the first place.

Better yet, why not do both?

The people causing the problem would be helped, the victims would be spared atrocious squalor and the town centre would be more appealing.