LIVERPOOL, home of the Beatles and designated as Europe’s capital of culture for 2008, will this week seek a new accolade. It will take steps to become another Amsterdam by applying to the Home Office to open Britain’s first officially recognised red light area.

The Liberal Democrat- controlled city council wants a “managed” vice district where healthcare workers will try to wean prostitutes off drugs.

It has set aside five possible sites, all car parks or streets on industrial estates, where sex will be for sale between 8pm and 2am. A squad of cleaners will then move in to mop up the area before factory workers clock on for their day shift.

Charles Clarke, the home secretary, would have to introduce changes in the law, which prohibits street prostitution, before approving a pilot scheme. But the government has acknowledged the possible merits of formalised red light areas. Its white paper, Paying the Price, said last year: “It is suggested that managed areas could bring significant benefits.”

The Home Office is assessing 850 replies to a consultation exercise. Other towns and cities are watching the outcome. Doncaster, Northampton, Bolton and Leicester councils have all talked about similar schemes. But Reading has cracked down on street prostitution, slapping antisocial behaviour orders on seven women with a threat of five years in jail if they persist.

An official report to the Scottish parliament last month recommended setting up recognised tolerance zones. Glasgow rejected the idea after protests from residents. An unofficial scheme in the Leith docks area of Edinburgh ran for 15 years but was scrapped in 2001 after a transfer to another part of the docks proved unpopular with residents.

In Liverpool, vice girls moved further into the city when the docks were redeveloped for tourism. There are now about 400 prostitutes working the streets. Social workers estimate that 98% of them are addicted to crack or heroin with a weekly habit costing between £350 and £550. In 2003 two of the women were murdered and their bodies left in bin bags.

The city council, which is expected to vote on Wednesday to ask Clarke for official sanction for its vice zone, wants to offer the prostitutes a needle exchange service, access to education and help to give up drugs.

The proposed scheme is based on ones already running in Cologne, Germany, and the Dutch city of Utrecht. Every prostitute working in the designated area would have to register. Police would be asked to show zero tolerance to anyone trying to sell sex outside the area, which would be monitored with CCTV cameras.

Mike Creer, a former police officer who runs the city’s drug intervention programme, said that a managed area would help to stop organised crime taking over vice in the city.

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Everyone will get vaccine against swine flu
• Artificial sperm and the race to build a baby
• BBC jets out stars to tout for prizes