Pensioners find drug needles in their hanging baskets at sheltered housing complex in Leeds

Cars were being broken into, garden furniture was being stolen, youths were congregating in the private grounds and drug needles were even found discarded in the hanging baskets at the flats at St Peter's Court, off Dewsbury Road, between Beeston and Hunslet.

It had got to the point where residents say they didn't know what would be sat in the porch waiting for them.

One told the Yorkshire Evening Post: "It was definitely unnerving. If you turned the corner, you didn't know what would be sat in your porch - drug addicts, people finding things like needles and shoes in plant pots. It was quite scary and not very safe."

Sue Hewitt, the development manager at the complex owned by Alpha Living, said: "The problems have been going on for more than two years. There have been incidents of anti-social behaviour, things taken out of gardens including big benches which were actually concreted into the ground and taken out over the wall and residents hanging baskets which they were really proud of.

"We have had incidents with drug use and youths loitering in that area. You have to come through an archway to get into the courtyard which was dark and sheltered from bad weather [attracting people to loiter]. It seems to have escalated a lot since they started moving people out of the city centre for loitering, we asked the council if there was anything they could do and we were very lucky that we were able to get in on a round of funding."

Leeds City Council’s Inner South Community Committee and Alpha split the costs of putting up 50 metres of fencing to make the grounds at the complex more private and special lighting to deter drug use.

Coun Paul Wray for Hunslet and Riverside said the beauty of the Inner South committee's grants were that they could be put to use quickly for community projects that need them.

Residents added: "We have most definitely noticed a difference. We feel much safer and it is much more private. When you are sat out nobody is looking over the wall, climbing over to ring the doorbells. Before it was a wide open space but now we feel like we are in our own garden."