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SWEETING STREET IN THE CENTRE OF LIVERPOOL AS IT IS TODAY. THE STREET IS WHERE THE NEW HOVIS ADVERT CREATED A QUAINT 1886 STREET SCENE. SEE COPY BELOW - The quaint street-scene where Hovis set their 15m celebration British history is in reality a urine-stained alley used for public sex and taking h ... Read more

SWEETING STREET IN THE CENTRE OF LIVERPOOL AS IT IS TODAY. THE STREET IS WHERE THE NEW HOVIS ADVERT CREATED A QUAINT 1886 STREET SCENE. SEE COPY BELOW - The quaint street-scene where Hovis set their 15m celebration British history is in reality a urine-stained alley used for public sex and taking heroin. The two-minute advert depicts a bustling Victorian street, complete with top-hatted gents, horse-driven carts and market stalls selling fresh produce. It's a picturesque view of the past and couldn't be more different from the grim modern reality of Sweeting Street, Liverpool where the commercial was filmed. The production crew were forced to conceal the coils of barbed-wire, CCTV cameras and graffiti and where they placed a friendly butcher going about his business, is instead the boarded entrance to a downtown casino development, currently being used for shelter by heroin addicts and frisky drunken couples. Local workers who use the alley for their cigarette breaks say they are forced to step over discarded condoms, underwear, beer bottles and puddles of urine. Andrea Hedgecock, 27 who works in an office overlooking Sweeting Street said: "It seems this is place to be at the weekend. I'm not joking, the morning after you find all sorts just left down here. Even girl's knickers. It's really disgusting. There's a lot of people coming through here when they've had a drink in town and you get down and outs sleeping in the doorways. "This used to be the State Ballroom, there's the original stained glass windows behind these boarded windows but now they are turning it into a casino. "There's going to be some kind of 'gentleman's club' lap-dancing bar upstairs as well."