Weymouth in Dorset is famous for its sandy, award winning beaches which attracts two million day trips a year bringing in millions of holidaymakers’ money annually
Holiday business owners and residents in the renowned seaside town of Weymouth, Dorset, are up in arms over what they describe as ‘moronic’ antisocial behaviour that’s tarnishing the area’s reputation, along with pervasive drug-related odours.
Weymouth, celebrated for its sandy shores, draws in two million day-trippers annually, contributing millions to the local economy through tourism. Its main beach has been consistently recognized as one of the best beaches in the UK, including being named the UK’s best beach by The Times and Sunday Times in 2023.
However, an increasing number of reports about brawls, public drinking, and drug transactions have emerged from concerned locals and hospitality proprietors.
Town dwellers and entrepreneurs lament that these issues are spoiling the experiences of visitors, with some guests vowing never to return. There is a consensus that more action is needed from authorities to address the relentless smell of marijuana smoke and the challenges posed by antisocial conduct.
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Lee Waugh, 57, a military veteran and long-time resident of Weymouth, asserts that the situation has escalated. He commented: “It’s definitely got worse. The levels of the problems seem to be higher. “For example, we need tables out the front to showcase our clothes and bring people into the shop, but opportunists steal them. It’s a catch 22. It’s a problem in town – groups can cause mayhem.
“They need to issue more orders to keep them out of town, and actually enforce them. I’ve noticed in the winter it doesn’t seem so bad, but come the summer I fully expect it will return. There’s a lot of weed – you can smell it. People don’t even hide it through town, they’re walking up and down the street with it. It’s the pack mentality with groups, just yobs who are only young – my mate got beaten up and had to go to hospital.
“The town looks run down as well, it’s quite a deprived area and there is a lot of poverty, and if it starts to show in the town and, with the antisocial behaviour in with it, it can be an unpleasant place to come. If you happen to be one of the people who gets caught up in, you probably won’t come back again. But under austerity, they closed everything, all the youth centres and progress made in the 90s stopped. Young people have nowhere to hang out.
“I think we could do with a few more officers on the beat, even if they’re just community support officers.”
Janet and David Dye, 67 and 71, hail from Basildon, Essex, but make regular trips to see their son who lives in the town. David – a retired manual labourer – feels it is unfair for families visiting the area and stated: “If you are drinking a bottle of beer in the street, the police should stop you and tell you to tip it out – that’s supposed to be the law.
“But a lot of the time they won’t, until someone complains that they’re drunk. But weed is the main problem, and the authorities shouldn’t let everyone do it.”
Janet, who previously worked in hospitality, expressed her frustration with the lack of visible community policing: “Don’t they have community officers who are supposed to be here walking up and down? We’ve been coming here loads for 13 years, and we’ve never seen any.
“That’s why they’re smoking weed, they’ve got nothing else to do so they cause a nuisance. If they want to play with knives, stick them in the army. That’ll teach them discipline and teach them respect, because most of them haven’t got any. People get more money from benefits than a job, they turn around and say ‘It’s not worth us going to work, we get more money on benefits’. We should send them out and tell them to sweep this promenade, pick the rubbish up, then at the end of the week, when they’ve got something signed to say they’ve done it, they can get their benefit. Work for it.”
Janet has a dim outlook on Government action: “But the Government doesn’t think like that do they? They really don’t. There’s no community groups or programmes or anything for children who are above the age of 11 or 12,” he said.
Barry Coleman, 69, who has run the store Baan 57 for four years, acknowledged that although business is healthy, they’ve been hit hard by shoplifting and antisocial behaviour. He stated: “Lots of visitors have been put off here, but that’s high streets across the country. I do have to say that the council does keep the seafront nice and clean, but having the drug dealers and street drinkers on the back streets will have an effect on holiday-makers.
“The problem just gets shifted around the town, rather than solved. But the problem for councils in these coastal areas is that they tend to have empty BnBs and hotels in the winter, so they get sent lots of homeless people to these places. So these coastal areas can become less and less popular.”
Kate Matthews, 56, who’s been a Weymouth local for over a decade and runs the quirky shop Pimpled since October 2024, has spoken out on the issue of crime in the area.
She shared her frustration: “According to the police and crime commissioner, last year crime went down here – it hasn’t, it’s gone up – but now you have to fill out so many forms, it’s 12 pages long. And it’s just not worth the time, so nobody gets prosecuted and crime looks like it’s going down.”
