DRUG users have been shooting up in the disabled toilet at Cavendish Square with the help of a stolen key.

Now fed up residents have got their beat officer, Andrena Rhodes, to change the locks in a bid to curb the damage and danger caused by their abandoned drug paraphernalia.

And the day after the locks were changed someone tried to break in to the toilet.

"It is a case of trying to keep drug users out of the toilets and making them realise that what they are doing isn't acceptable," said WPC Rhodes.

She accepted it caused some problems for legitimate users, but asked for patience over the next couple of weeks while she consulted with the estates manager over a permanent solution to the problem.

Before the new lock was installed, used needles and tinfoil had been found in the toilets and, when addicts emerged on a high, the residents of the square were left to suffer the effects, including shoplifting to fund more drugs.

One firm that used to hold a key said they had addicts brazenly walking in and demanding to use it.

They eventually stopped the service because of fears over hygiene.

The news comes days after the Advertiser revealed public toilets in Victoria Road, Old Town, were suffering similar abuse from junkies.

Swindon Borough Council press officer Gavin Calthrop said then that it was a problem throughout the public toilets in the borough.

The key to the Cavendish Square toilet went missing from one of the shops in the square.

But now the locks have been changed and new keys have been issued to the manager of the Thursday market and The Shop, where there is another disabled toilet.

WPC Rhodes is also looking into the possibility of a nearby telephone box being removed.

"I am aware that the telephone box on Cavendish Square and Whitbourne Avenue is a drop off point," she said.

"The addicts are getting their drugs there and nipping into the toilet immediately."

But everything is in the air at the moment because of the plan to rejuvenate the whole area.

WPC Rhodes that there were also plans to bring in another beat officer to replace Paul Saunders, who has moved on.

"We are hoping it is going to be soon," she said.