NEIGHBOURS are appealing for police to clamp down on prostitutes in Southend town centre.

There have been 11 reports to police in the past two months. The issue was raised at a meeting of the Kursaal Neighbourhood Action Panel which had asked police to tackle prostitution as a priority.

Most reports had been about a red Peugeot car which had been seen picking up the girls and driving them to a new location.

PC Dan Hedges, neighbourhood constable for Kursaal, told the meeting: “We spoke to the driver. We stopped him I’d say about ten times, but he kept coming back.”

Police had been working with the Crown Prosecution Service to try to find legislation to prosecute the man.

But the problem solved itself, because the car was written off last month.

Officers have also been using other methods to tackle street prostitution. They have issued street cautions to four female prostitutes, and identified a new woman working the streets.

She was spoken to by PC Hedges and Sgt Paul Ahmed and hasn’t been seen since.

PC Hedges said it had been raised at a previous meeting that two particular women were causing most of the antisocial behaviour.

He said: “One of those females is in a rehabilitation programme to deal with her drug issues, so hopefully we shouldn’t be seeing her for at least six months, and when she does come out hopefully she may have been cured of the drugs problem and won’t be seen again.”

Operation Trestle has largely been hailed as a success since it launched in 2009.

Police have been trawling the streets to speak to prostitutes, pointing them in the direction of support agencies, and taking to court persistent offenders. However, the panel asked police to keep tackling the issue as a priority.