SURPRISE greeted news police had sealed up a Railway Village crack den.

Magistrates signed off the three month closure order on the council-owned bedsit. It means the only people allowed to visit the flat on Reading Street is Swindon Borough Council, 28-year-old tenant Mitzi Irving and the emergency services.

Should anyone else enter the bedsit they can expect a spell in the cells.

Residents on the quiet back alley behind Reading and Oxford streets said there remained problems with drug dealing and anti-social behaviour. But they claimed the situation was better than it had been. Lee Williams, 39, said: “I moved in here 12 or 13 years ago. It was mad back then. Lots of prostitutes, lots of drug dens. Then the council moved everybody out and cleaned it all up.” He added: “Lately, it’s been a bit busier. Every night there’s a big group of people at the end of the alleyway.”

Mum-of-three Cassie Mullen, 43, has lived in the area for 17 years: “You get loads of people hanging around waiting to pick up drugs.” The anti-social behaviour only upset her where it affected her young children. “What I’d really like to see the council do is covert the bedsits into family homes.”

Alex Gough, 33, complained of issues with litter and dog mess in the alleyway running behind Reading Street: “There’s lots of rubbish that gets dumped down there. People don’t bother picking it up.”

Police said the order had been brought over concerns the house was being used as a base from which to deal drugs. It had been linked to out-of-town county lines gangs.

Insp David Tippetts said: “These orders allow us to prevent people attending a property which protects the residents from being exploited and neighbouring properties from associated anti-social behaviour.

"Where we have the evidence of organised drug dealing from an address we will continue to seek these orders to protect the general public and vulnerable people.”

Swindon Borough Council stressed its commitment to tackling the exploitation of its tenants by county lines drug dealing gangs.

Coun Cathy Martyn, the borough cabinet member for housing and public safety, added: “The drug dealing at this property was having a hugely negative impact on our tenant and the local neighbourhood. The partial closure order will allow our tenant to continue living at the property without the fear of gangs using it as a base for their anti-social and criminal behaviour.

“We have a duty to protect our tenants, which is why we will continue to work closely with Wiltshire Police to clamp down on this abhorrent exploitation wherever possible.”