Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/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

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 to local leisure activities, viz: "Map to show hotspots for discarded injecting paraphenlia" [sic]...

Google map showing incidents of abandoned drug paraphernalia in Hastings

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, and in the circumstances highly appropriate, guide to local amenities:

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

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. 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." ®