RUBBISH, needles, beer bottles and piles of plastic are among the items dumped on the seafront.

Volunteers who cleaned up the crumbling Madeira Terrace have revealed the shocking state of rubbish on the “window to Brighton”.

During a clean-up on Thursday, they found discarded needles, burnt spoons, empty vodka bottles, a toilet seat, and “something that looked like heroin”.

Jax Atkins from the Save Madeira Terrace Campaign was one of the cleaners.

She said: “It was far worse than I thought it would be.

“It’s terrible and it’s not only the area that we looked at.

“They’re the window to Brighton, this is what people see.

“All the items could blow down to Madeira Drive, any drug paraphernalia could be picked up by a kid, animal or dog.

“There’s all sorts of implications to this as there’s holes in the structure.”

Mrs Atkins said she was “disgusted” by what the group had found. Also among the waste was discarded cans of beer, plastic bottles, tobacco pouches, shot glasses, sleeping medication, rotten food and a phone.

Mrs Atkins said the most shocking discovery was a “full head of hair”, thought to be a wig.

She said: “We saw the full head of hair but didn’t want to check it in case there was a head in it.

“It doesn’t matter if the terraces are open or shut, it still needs to be cleaned.”

The team made up of volunteers aged “90 and under” collected and bagged up the rubbish.

They are calling for more volunteers to help them in their next clean-up effort.

Mrs Atkins, who has a key to the sealed-off terrace, said: “Everyone come down and join in.

“We’ll be supplying the basics –gloves, grabbers and sharp boxes – people just need to bring enthusiasm.”

The group will be meeting at 10am on March 9 at the Madeira Cafe.

Brighton and Hove City Council set up a public crowdfunding campaign in 2017, raising more than £450,000 to restore three arches of the crumbling Madeira Terrace on the seafront.