Children as young as two in Skipton are picking up used syringes thrown away by drug addicts.

Part of the area around Christ Church is said to be a haven for heroin addicts and even children at the local primary school have found hypodermic needles on the edges of their playground.

Residents are fed up with the constant flow of users and dealers they claim visit a certain house in the Newtown area.

Mum Sarah Hayton was horrified to find her two-year-old son Reece brandishing handfuls of blood-stained needles after he saw them in their backyard on Church Street.

She and her husband Jonathan are also frustrated that a maggot and needle-ridden pile of rubbish behind a nearby house is also bringing the area down.

And earlier this year police had to evacuate much of the street when a discarded gas container was found in danger of exploding in the yard of a house.

Sarah said: "It's like a living hell here. During the day the cobbled street at the back looks like any other, but at night it's swarming with drug users.

"I couldn't believe it when Reece produced these needles. I could see that they still had some blood in them.

"When they've finished they just toss their needles over our wall, as well as into the playground of Christ Church. I dread to think what could happen if one of the children was jabbed or cut by any of these horrible things.

"Because he's only young Reece only plays out in our yard, but he's not even safe there. We want to move but who's going to want to move here now?

"I bought this house because it used to be my granddad's. We've been here four years but with all this recent Drugs trouble and the noise that comes with it, we are trapped really."

Sarah's neighbour, who didn't want to be named, added: "There's so many drugs users coming and going. It's terrible because there's a school just across the way there."

Jean Ball, headteacher at Christ Church Primary School, just yards from the back of Church Street, said: "Children have found needles in the back street. The last one was two or three weeks ago.

"We do have drugs education in the school and the children do know what to be wary of. It is a matter of concern."

Angela Lund, of Craven Organisation for Drugs and Alcohol, said: "People should not pick any needles up that they find. They should immediately contact the environmental health department.''

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