FRUSTRATED residents are calling for Newport council to stop "dumping" hostels in St Woolos which they believe to be causing the crimewave destroying their community.

Ron McCormick, who called and chaired a meeting of 70 Stow Hill and Baneswell residents, many of them victims of crime or anti-social behaviour, said the 2001 census shows 45 of Newport's 56 hotels or houses of multi-occupation are in the St Woolos ward.

But St Woolos councillor Miqdad Al-Nuaimi rejected the figures, calling them "ridiculous".

Mr McCormick said: "I have nothing against what these registered hostels for the homeless, for drug-abusers, for alcoholics and for single-parent families are trying to do.

"But they bring an extraordinary concentration of transitional people passing through our community who have no commitment to our area. "We have become Newport's dumping ground for hostels.

"Meanwhile, problems with anti-social behaviour, litter, petty crime and drug-dealing are on the increase. I won't accept anymore.

"Individual incidents may seem small to the police but when they're put together we're dealing with a crimewave."

Many of the residents at St Woolos Cathedral hall told Graham Wheeler, their local community warden, they were dissatisfied with Gwent Police who failed to attend the meeting though representatives were invited. And everyone who spoke told of personal misery as victims of crime at the hands of youngsters.

Una Linnard, of St Woolos Road, said: "In the last 12 months my son has been assaulted by three youths, my house has been broken into while we were sitting watching television and our car has been vandalised.

"Since then I have been abused and spat at for reporting these crimes." The group voted to form a Neighbourhood Watch to work in tandem with an existing group operating in Dewsland Park Road and to lobby the council to reject all new planning applications for hostels in the area until an investigation into the census figures is complete.

Councillor Al-Nuaimi, also chairman of Newport's planning authority, said: "I find those figures you quoted ridiculously high.

"You are wrong and it is not true that this ward has become a dumping ground. We have rejected certain applications."