My girlfriend and I moved to Waterloo Street, off the Western Road on the Brighton-Hove border, in August 2001.

In this short period we have seen people openly jacking up heroin under street lights in Brunswick Square, I had a bag stolen from my hallway as I unloaded shopping from the car, my girlfriend is the only eye witness to a serious mugging opposite Waitrose, I have found and binned needles and spoons on Waterloo Street and, only the other day as I bought the Sunday papers, the hairdresser's at the top of Waterloo Street was robbed by a grab-and-run raider while four people were in the shop.

Finding a parking space is not easy but I always see parking wardens at all hours all over Brighton and Hove.

I recently received my new council tax bill, in which I see increased percentages going to the police. If only the police had a presence in Brighton and Hove like the traffic wardens do, I expect it would be a much safer place to live.

I never see a bobby on the beat, ever. Brighton and Hove has a drug-fuelled undercurrent of crime that is slowly building up like a volcano.

Brighton and Hove City Council and the police need to work together immediately to devote as much time to zero tolerance of drug-related crime as they do to illegally-parked cars before Brighton and Hove becomes a magnet for drug addicts.

-Mark Watkins, mark.watkins@cwcom.co.uk