ROUGH sleepers are making life a misery for traders near a drop-in centre for the homeless in Dorchester.

Traders say their businesses are suffering from drunken and offensive behaviour as homeless people congregate at the centre in Great Western Road.

Rob Rees, proprietor of GW Electrical Distributors, said traders were blighted by mess and bad language.

He said staff and customers often saw Hub users urinating in public and fighting.

And he said their working day usually started with having to wake up and move on people who sleep in the customers' car park.

He said: "The Hub is only open for two hours a day but there are more and more of them now and they stay around all the time.

"Not all of them drink but most do, and they just get wasted a lot of the time.

"We've found used needles outside and dog mess and everything.

"We can look out of our windows and see a load of them urinating into the hedge over the road. They fight. If there's something wrong, they can't be civil about it - it's all effing and blinding."

He said he is concerned that it has an effect on business - customers have left after hearing Hub users' bad language.

His colleague John Cheeseman said: "We have problems with them all day. They're miserable and hungover in the mornings and then they are drunk again in the afternoon."

Mr Rees and representatives from neighbouring Carpets 2000 and Swinton Insurance combined forces to write to the Echo stating that they support the principle of the Hub but have seen the transient population of users turn resident.

They stated: "The day for ourselves, who trade and work from premises adjacent to the Hub, starts by having to arouse the residents from their slumbers in our car parks. We then clear up their mess and suffer verbal earbashing."

They described how the rough sleepers' typical day continues with "urinating against the wall of Focus, shouting at each other with language that cannot be printed, drinking from the cans and bottles that these hard-up, poor homeless people seem to have in abundant supply" and goes on with fights, begging, abusing the public and passing out.

Mr Rees said that when the Hub opened more than a year ago users stuck to the house rules including a zero tolerance towards drugs and alcohol, banning them from the premises or surrounding area. Physical or verbal abuse was banned as well.

But he said those rules were now being flouted by an increasing number of people who used the centre.

He added: "It's driving us to the end of our tether. It's in the wrong situation. We're all trying to run our businesses here."

He said he was also concerned that people coming in to Dorchester West station at the top of Great Western Road would be intimidated by the group of homeless who gather there to drink.

"It doesn't give a good impression of Dorchester."

Inspector Les Fry of Dorchester Police said he was aware of the problems being posed by the Hub to neighbouring businesses.

He said: "We are working with the Hub and West Dorset District Council and all other agencies to look at the problems that the rough sleepers in Dorchester are causing.

"We are sympathetic to the businesses concerned but as the numbers grow public concern is increasing."

He added: "If anyone is concerned they should contact the police and we will respond appropriately."

The Hub is open for two hours on weekday mornings offering shower and clothes-washing facilities, a hot meal and advice with a range of problems such as housing and health.

Trustee of the Hub, Margaret Barker, said: "The Hub management is hugely sympathetic to the businesses opposite and very grateful to them for what is quite a long-standing forbearance.

"The problem at the moment is because people who are drinking and have nowhere to go have been moved on from the town with the new alcohol control order, there really is nowhere for them to go and drink in the whole town.

"So they tend to sit opposite the Hub, even when the Hub is closed.

"At the moment we're in discussions with the police to try and find a solution, because neither of us want this to be affecting the trade of the businesses opposite."