Almost everyone in Brighton wants to see drunks and drug addicts in the town centre removed from the streets.

But the difficulty is how you deal with these people without simply perpetuating the problem or sending it somewhere else.

In the past, there has been a vicious cycle involving drunks more than anyone else.

They were picked up by police, fined or imprisoned by the courts, and then returned to exactly where they were before in the town centre.

For the last two years the Equinox Centre in Old Steine has being trying to help alcoholics do something about their lives without expecting instant results.

That's why the centre has a wet room where alcoholics can drink in safety during the day while receiving advice on how to break their habit.

It can be slow work and it doesn't get results with everyone. But there are successes with several alcoholics being weaned off the booze so they can then tackle their other difficulties.

These often include homelessness and, nearly always, unemployment.

There are noticeably fewer drunks than there were in Brighton, so the centre is doing a good job. Now it needs cash so its support services can be developed.

If help now being arranged for drug addicts proves as successful, Brighton will have gone a long way towards solving one of its most intractable social problems.