DRUGS were allegedly being stored in a child’s bedroom and faeces had been left in the corner of another room at a suspected Eldene crack den, police said.

Magistrates yesterday morning signed off a three-month closure order on the Bowleymead council house, banning all but the 33-year-old tenant, her children, another girl and the authorities from entering the house.

It follows a police raid earlier this week when police claimed to have found crack cocaine, heroin and cannabis worth an estimated £40,000 on the street.

It is alleged that inside the house a series of knives and £1,500-worth of suspected stolen goods, including Haribo, Lynx Africa deodorant and Fortnite action figures, were found.

Three young children, aged seven to 10, were inside the home. According to court papers, drugs were found inside a child’s bedroom together with a knife apparently used to prepare the class A substance for sale.

Police said the drug dealing was linked to a supposed gang operating in Eldene. The group, which has been targeted by a number of police raids since the summer, has been likened to a home-grown County Lines gang.

PCSO Phil Day, community coordinator for east Swindon, wrote in a witness statement presented to the court to support the closure order application: “[She] is allowing dangerous people who form part of a local urban street gang to regularly attend her property in order to use it as a base for cutting, preparing and dealing drugs to the local community.

“The public feels frightened to venture outside of their homes within the area through fear of seeing or being indirectly exposed to drug related activity or other anti-social behaviour.”

Supt Phil Staynings added: “It is felt that without the closure notice [the resident] will continue to put herself and three young children at significant risk of harm and will continue to be exploited by local class A drug dealing gangs who will continue to take over the property, which is likely to result in more reports of serious disorder coming from the address."

Police have executed a number of drugs warrants in Eldene since the summer. But they were struggling to have an impact, police said.

“The success of the police tactics have been shortlived and unsustainable. The application is the most proportionate method of achieving community safety,” Supt Staynings wrote.

Det Sgt Georgina Green, a drugs expert with Wiltshire Police, said: “Residential addresses used for the supply of drugs create a hive of activity with anti-social behaviour, increase in crime and fear of crime for local residents and brings with it an array of health and social problems.”

Three people have been charged in connection with supplying drugs found at the house. A man and a woman arrested during the raid have since been released on bail.