Harper Green residents living in fear of drug users who have taken over their local park

Residents living close to Harper Green Playing Fields, off Harper Green Road, say the area has been blighted by drug users and prostitutes operating in broad daylight, and claim that police and Bolton Council are turning a blind eye to it.

It comes less than two weeks after a teenager discovered the body of a man in a secluded wooded area just off the playing fields.

Beverley Mort, from the Flower Estate Resident Association, said: “It is getting really bad round here. We are finding people collapsed on a nightly basis.

“There are needles being left all over the place, and prostitutes going into the bushes when there are kids about.

“A young lad collapsed on the field the other day. It is horrible to find someone on the floor drugged up like that.

“People are scared to walk on there on their own now because they might find another body.

“This is a place where people play football and tennis. There is nowhere else for children round here to go."

Dog walkers in the area say they have now taken to going on to the field in a group, and that despite sharing their concerns with the police and council, nothing is being doing to improve the situation.

Ms Mort added: “The police and council don’t seem to care. They are not doing anything about it.

“There have been children playing close to where these needles are. These kids are going to end up sticking in a needle in themselves.”

Ella Sanders-Hole, who lives in nearby Daffodil Road, says she recently conducted a clean up of the wooded area next to the field, and came across a large quantity of needles.

She added: “There are crack pipes and foil as well. There is drug dealing going on in the open every day, it is dreadful.

“The kids are going into the bushes playing games and they are being exposed to needles and all this left behind. We have had to tell them to stay away from it

“I would not come on here alone anymore, or bring my kids with me.”