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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/22/hastings_hotspots/

Hastings junkie hotspots pop up on Google Maps

Handy guide to discarded paraphernalia

By Lester Haines

Posted in Bootnotes, 22nd January 2009 11:20 GMT

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Those of you planning a nice day out in the sunny seaside town of Hastings - previously famous for the 1066 1-0 victory of Norman Wanderers over Godwinson Athletic and now noted for the UK's highest ratio of drug dealers to pubs - will doubtless welcome this useful guide [1] to local leisure activities, viz: "Map to show hotspots for discarded injecting paraphenlia" [sic]...

Google map showing incidents of abandoned drug paraphernalia in Hastings [2]

Splendid. Map creator "natalieannbutler", who evidently doesn't work for the Hastings Tourist Board, explains: "This map pinpoints where contractors were called out to deal with an incident of used injecting equipment being left in a public place."

As a further public service, natalieannbutler has created another [3], and in the circumstances highly appropriate, guide to local amenities:

User maps showing drug parafernalia and handy guide to Hasting's GP surgeries [4]

Good stuff. In case you were wondering, these Hastings heroin hotspots were brought to our attention by David Black of Leicestershire's Fleckney Village Cricket Club [5]. David was apparently on a reccy down in East Sussex scouting possible locations for a tour, and fortuitously stumbled upon the map.

He told El Reg: "Our last tour was to Amsterdam in May 2008, but even that city didn't have a map showing where to get accidentally stabbed with a drug-used sharp." ®