Kerb crawlers get warning signs

About 300 prostitutes are thought to be working in Medway

New street signs are to be put up in red light districts of Medway to warn kerb crawlers they will be prosecuted.

It is part of a get-tough policy to deal with the 300 or so prostitutes thought to be working in areas of Kent which are becoming more residential.

"It has been a problem in Rochester and Chatham for the whole time I have been a councillor, which is 11 years," said Medway Council member Bill Esterson.

"People who have to live with this 24 hours a day have had enough."

He said the signs would let kerb crawlers know they were not wanted and would be caught.

"It is time to try things that haven't been tried before."

Drug addiction

Medway Crime Reduction Partnership agreed to the signs in December, but it is not yet known when they will go up.

Mr Esterson said he was impressed with action taken by the police, who had written to known kerb crawlers, named and shamed them in newspapers and obtained anti-social behaviour orders against prostitutes.

But because prostitution was driven by drug addiction there were always more prostitutes moving in because they needed to pay for their habits.

In January the government put forward proposals to allow prostitutes to operate in small, licensed brothels.

Mr Esterson, a Labour councillor, said he backed the idea.

"Not everybody will find it tasteful, but the problem is not going to go away so you need to come up with a long-term solution," he said.