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The laws governing prostitution have remained essentially the same for the past 50 years, but recent changes implemented in last year's Sexual Offences Act highlighted the need to bring them up to date.

Under consideration will be the concept of 'Tolerance Zones' - a designated area where police turn a blind eye to the activities of sex workers on the street.

A private member's Bill under consideration in the Scottish Parliament would enable councils north of the border to legally designate these zones.

Scotland's capital city operated an unofficial tolerance zone in Leith for 15 years until December 2003 when it was abandoned after its relocation upset residents.

Glasgow and Aberdeen have also operated similar zones, which supporters say protect the young people involved from attack, and contain their activities to a set area.

So why not Middlesbrough? We spoke to some of the people involved in the issue on Teesside.

Inspector Gary Gamesby of Cleveland Police's Prostitution Task Force

听"Tolerance zones won't work for a number of practical reasons.

First, there is no room for a tolerance zone in Middlesbrough.

On average we have 27 people per hectare, whereas the national average is 3.5.

Second, street sex workers wouldn't respect boundaries.

When approaching the zone they wouldn't turn down a male kerb crawler who wasn't within the zone.

Instead of establishing Tolerance Zones, we need to work together to remove drugs from the streets because the majority, if not all, of street sex workers in Middlesbrough are wrecked by heroin and crack cocaine, and that drives them to continue with prostitution."

Dr John Gibbins of the University of Teesside, criminologist.

"Leaving things as they are leaves us with two or three women being murdered every year, and leads to vast expenditure by the police.

Decriminalising prostitution altogether would lead to Middlesbrough becoming some sort of Las Vegas-style society.

My reading of the situation in Australia and Holland is that by turning prostitutes into sex workers, we can bring in all the employment protection legislation, and things like taxation which we apply to any other industry."

Three street sex workers

Woman A:
It would be a good idea because you're not getting bothered, and there's not so many people being named and shamed - which ruins their families' lives.

Woman B:
If there was a building, we could put guys on the doors to make it safer.

Then people wouldn't dare rape or attack girls. They should make it compulsory to have tests for disease. They could make sure everybody was above age.

Woman C:
There's prostitutes being murdered, aren't there, so I never feel safe.

We'd be better off with Tolerance Zones because it would stop punters raping women, or kidnapping them.

Barry Coppinger, Middlesbrough Council's Executive Member for Public Protection.

I'm not sure how thought through the idea of a Tolerance Zone is.

We don't want any tolerance in Middlesbrough of either kerb-crawling or prostitution.

I'd be interested to see if tolerance zones are established across the country, but our attitude in Middlesbrough would be: it's not something we would volunteer for.

We don't think it's acceptable for local communities, and for the sex workers themselves, for people to be engaged in sex work.

So we want to do all that we can through a number of different approaches to stop it.


Maureen Westerby of the St Columba's Project, a drop-in centre for street sex workers.

When the girls are out and about they do look after each other, but giving them a tolerance zone is saying "it's ok for you to be out on the streets".

And none of those girls deserve to be out there.

People might see them as hard-faced prostitutes, but they're not. They're frightened kids.