Locals carrying machetes, shoplifting and homelessness plague ’best place to live in England’

IT was only last summer that Plymouth was named ’the best place to live in England’. But locals say the historic maritime city is now plagued by mobs of destructive kids as young as 11, shoplifters, and drug users openly dealing on the streets and “shooting up“ in shops. Business owners have complained about a rise in people stealing and abuse towards staff, windows being smashed, and young gangs trying to break into buildings through skylights. On the morning The Sun visited we were met by boarded-up shopfronts and walls of graffiti, groups of arguing youths and drunks zig-zagging up the street clutching cans of booze. Pete Monsgrove, 53, is Plymouth-born and bred and said crime has noticeably increased in the past few years. “The way things are going are bad,“ he told us. “I saw a guy, someone I recognised, and he was carrying a machete round town. “I was like, ‘What are you doing?’ and he said, ‘It’s for my protection’. “