PEOPLE in west Wiltshire are too scared to use car parks after dark because of their reputation for crime.

While car parks in Swindon and Salisbury win police awards for their anti-crime designs, those in west Wiltshire towns are still zones of fear where people feel vulnerable and unsafe.

St Stephen's Place multi-storey car park in Trowbridge has been labelled the worst offender with arson attacks, perverts and thieves making the area a virtual no-go zone.

Wiltshire crime reduction officer Malcolm Stiles said: "Over the years, we have looked at car parks in west Wiltshire, including St Stephen's Place, every time there is a major crime.

"We make recommendations but it is up to the district council to follow them up.

"The idea of the Secure Car Parks Awards is to alleviate the fear of crime and make them more hospitable. It will increase revenue for the towns as people will want to use them.

"It is mainly the multi-storeys which have problems, particularly St Stephen's Place. I would say it is one of the worst examples.

"It is not encouraging for an authority to have no car park awards for safety. I have been to several car parks in Trowbridge and Melksham and they are not very user-friendly.

"The problem centres around cost and how much it would be to bring them up to standard.

"The benefits of an award centre around giving the public a nice, convenient car park which makes them feel safe. They can walk about without the fear of being molested."

Nearly all car-parks owned by the district council are without surveillance equipment or patrol guards, despite a review being carried out into safety by officers this year.

Community safety officer, Pippa McVeigh, said the stringent rules of the police car park awards were not practical for most of its 28 sites.

She said: "If we actually think of the geographic locations of our car parks, some of the criteria are impractical.

"It is a standard which we can aspire too. I have looked at all the criticisms of the car parks and will see what we can do.

"We have put signage up at the car-parks already encouraging people to be security conscious. There have only been 57 thefts from cars in a 12-month period in all of our car parks.

"I would agree, though, that the multi-storey car-park in Trowbridge is a car-park which generates fear and mistrust."

Mrs McVeigh said the worst car-parks in the district would be targeted for improvements next year.