Talk:Highfields, Leicestershire

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I'd consider Spinney Hills to be part of Highfields, and there was a legal challenge to the boundary commission splitting the two areas recently. Sure Start operates over the whole area. The "Highfields Remembered" site includes areas to the east of East Park Road, which I think most people nowadays would consider to be Evington Valley. These things are never clearly defined, anyway. I was a member of HART in the days when we'd get three people turning up to meetings, and was vice-chair for a while, though I haven't had time for involvement in the last couple of years. Crime is the first thing to occur to most people from outside the area, and although that's largely unfair these days it's a continuing problem, drug use/sales especially. My house is in a street once notorious (20+ years ago) for being "full of tarts", as a solicitor once told me, but if there's anything like that going on now, I don't see any evidence. According to the local Police Inspector, there's an unofficial policy of encouraging all the street prostitutes to use the industrial area around the St George's end of Humberstone Rd, rather than residential areas. I'm not sure Wikipedia needs a "where to find prostitutes in Leicester" article, though! --  ajn (talk) 11:38, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. But then, it is an inner city area (probably the most inner city area leicester has), and that sort of thing is not unusual. It certainly doesn't have a national reputation. I work just on Granville Road and frankly I feel a lot safer when I'm in Highfields than I do along the middle of Uppingham Road. Morwen - Talk 12:33, 2 September 2005 (UTC)kkk

In response to this:

"Highfields has in the past been an area associated with crime - it was known even prior to the Second World War as the city's red light district however this is no longer the case. In recent years some of the establishments associated with criminal activity have been closed, and the police have adopted a hardline policy on properties used for the sale and consumption of drugs, in collaboration with local residents' associations..."

I live in Highfields and one thing I really am not fond of is the beleif of people outside the area that it's alright now. If you walk up Upper Tichbourne Street between 4:00pm and 5:00pm you will see exacly which houses are associated with drugs. I have lived in Highfields for a year now, I could point out a handful of houses simply walking from my house to the City, which you could likely obtain class 'a' drugs by knocking on the front door. Only once have I seen police in Highfields, in the year I've been here and that was just returning a drunk to his house. If the police trully had adopted a hardline policy, why have I seen no evidence of this? Sure, the prostitution isn't as bad as it used to be, but the drugs and the gangs are still verymuch there.