A Mansfield business owner has become so "disheartened" by the number of people urinating on his premises at night that he could be moving his company out of the town. Jordan Hall, 29, has lived in Mansfield throughout his life and wanted to help the town by basing his IT business in it.
But soon after acquiring his office building on Market Place in July, Mr Hall noticed an unpleasant smell at its entrance. After installing a doorbell camera, he found out that people were regularly using the office entrance as a toilet.
A Facebook page was then set up in which Mr Hall shares the doorbell camera footage in an effort to identify and to "name and shame" those responsible. In one case, a boy of around 16 years old was sent by his mother to apologise to Mr Hall and to clean up what he had done himself.
READ MORE: Family face eviction after 'nightmare' flat prompts rent refusal
Jordan Hall says he has informed Nottinghamshire Police but that the anti-social behaviour is happening every week. As a result, he will soon be trialling out a new office in Rainworth.
He said: "I've worked all over the UK and abroad in places like Poland and Dubai, so I wanted to come back home to Mansfield and to help the town by basing my business here and employing people from here. But I can't go on having to come in every Monday and clean up the entrance that people have been using as a toilet.
"We are now trialling out a different office in Rainworth but it is disheartening having to do that because I did want to be in Mansfield. But at the moment, I'm not actually bringing clients in the current office for meetings because it's embarrassing.
"The company name is actually on the door now and I don't want it associated with what's been happening at the entrance. I just put the footage up to try and identify people and then pass their details on to try and get them fined for a public order offence."
Chief Inspector Chris Sutcliffe, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: "This kind of behaviour is utterly unacceptable and will never be tolerated by the police. We have a wide range of options available to us to deal with people who behave in this way, including by issuing fines and ordering people out of the town centre.
"If people continually behave in an antisocial way in the town centre we can and will apply to the courts to introduce more stringent controls on their movements and their freedoms. We are working hard with our partners to clamp down on antisocial behaviour of all kinds as we work to make Mansfield the best place it can be to live work and visit."
Jordan Hall's doorbell camera allows him to watch live footage on his mobile phone, and he was alerted to one incident whilst in hospital with his pregnant partner Bethany Downs, 19. Jordan said: "I was at King's Mill on the night that my partner was having to have an emergency C-section, when my phone went off and I saw two people actually squatting at the business entrance.
"With everything else going off in the hospital I just didn't need that and I was absolutely raging about it. My partner and the baby were eventually fine but there was nothing when I got back to the office entrance.
"Someone might have cleaned it up before I got back because there was nothing at the entrance, but it didn't look good on camera. One of the people doing it actually had their face totally covered, almost as if it was planned."
Mr Hall's partner Bethany added: "The smell was bad as soon as we got here and when you're pregnant, your sense of smell is incredibly strong so it wasn't nice for me. I'd actually stopped being sick but I started again when we got this place."
Jordan Hall says that any lack of public toilets is "no excuse" as there is a McDonald's and several pubs nearby, though he says he has thought about putting a portable toilet outside his business. A spokesperson for Mansfield District Council said: "We encourage Mr Hall to get in touch with us directly with more information and we can explore possible options to assist him with this matter.
"Urinating in a public place is unacceptable and is prohibited as part of our Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO). If anyone is found to be breaching this order, they will be issued with a fixed penalty notice."
READ NEXT:
- Call for Wollaton Park security review after man injured by deer
- Air ambulance lands after medical emergency on bus in Nottinghamshire
- Driver 'scared' after men 'kicked and scratched' car in McDonald's drive-thru
- Nottinghamshire care home rated inadequate after resident death
- Drivers told to go to race track after 'dangerous' car meet on M1
