Plymouth council leader promises bus station clean-up

Traders at the station said cleanliness was an ongoing problem

The leader of Plymouth's city council has promised to look at cleaning up the city centre's bus station after traders in it complained about its condition.

Traders at Bretonside said they were so annoyed about the council-owned station's state that they were planning to clean it up themselves.

They said that, on occasions, it had been used as an open-air toilet.

Conservative council leader Vivien Pengelly said she was contacting cleaning staff about the situation.

The station, which is beside the city's £200m Drake Circus shopping mall, has about 10 businesses in it.

Traders said they were concerned that visitors coming in by bus and coach could be dissuaded from returning because of the state of it.

Trader Vas Georgio said Bretonside had had problems for many years.

He said: "We constantly phone the council up, constantly people would write into them.

"This has been an ongoing issue from the day I took over my premises in the station some 11 years ago."

Text messaging the BBC, Ms Pengelly said: "I have spoken to the street cleansing team this morning."