A CONCERNED dog owner is “disturbed” by a sudden surge in open drug taking on her daily dog-walking route.

The woman from Kemp Town, who wished to remain anonymous, walks her dogs three or four times a day in the Craven Vale woods area, behind the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

She said: “In the last week, the number of people I’ve seen in the woods, openly injecting themselves, has increased massively.

“I know there has been a bit of a clean-up of St James’s Street and in Queen’s Park, so I wonder if people are now looking for somewhere else to go to do it.

“On the footpath at the end of Bute Street, which takes you into the woods, I’ve seen groups of people, some sitting on the path itself, injecting, some in the undergrowth, passed out.

“I saw one guy with his trousers pulled down, injecting into his groin.”

The woman expressed her worry for the drug users and said she often speaks to them and tries to help them.

She said: “Actually everyone I have approached has been chatty and friendly.

“I’ve told them they can’t inject themselves here, that lots of people walk their dogs and parents use the woods as a cut-through to get to the school at the top.

“I ask them to take their needles with them and they say they’ll clear up, but it is upsetting.

“They do tend to take their needles with them, they just leave bits of foil and packets on the ground.”

Some drug-users have told the woman they are being moved on or arrested on the streets, so are having to find more “secluded areas.”

One man who spoke to the woman while she walked her dogs, warned her about the potential dangers in the “lower part” of the woods.

She said: “While he was injecting himself in the ankle, he actually said to me to be careful letting my dogs off in that area because of the needles and that hepatitis is rife.

“It’s made me nervous, so I keep them on the lead until we get to the top of the woods, near the racecourse.”

The woman has reported incidents of open drug use to Sussex Police by calling 101, who have created a case.

Police have also since responded to a 999 call made by the woman, although the drug-users had left the scene when they arrived.

The woman said: “I really have tried to help some of them, one girl couldn’t have been more than 16.

“They need a safe place to go, somewhere to get help.”