Plans for a ‘community safety hub’ have been agreed for Weymouth town centre.

But there is no public information about where it will go, or when, or how much it will cost.

Borough councillors approved the idea at Tuesday’s management committee meeting.

The centre is designed as a place where agency staff who work with the area’s homeless, drug and alcohol abusers and other vulnerable people, work from. It is not expected be open to the public but could be used, from time to time, for drop-in sessions.

Cllr Mike Byatt said the centre was a way of getting a more holistic approach to the problems of a relatively small number of people in the town and the many agencies who dealt with them.

He said he was keen that a place for the centre be found as soon as possible so that the project could be set up by the time the borough council ceases to exist in April next year.

Cllr Colin Huckle said there was a real need for a co-ordinated approach: “We still get loads of comments about drug-taking. Yesterday someone complained that the anti-social behaviour people are still using the seafront shelter and that the community safety officers don’t seem to be too visible.”

Housing briefholder Cllr Gill Taylor said she was concerned by the use of the word “safety” in the title for the hub.

“A lot of people will just think ‘police’. This really is a good idea but we have to be very careful how we badge it,” she said.

Cllr Dr Jon Orrell also welcomed the hub, but said that he would also welcome a rehabilitation centre for the town to complete the process of helping people kick their habits.

“The police, prison route has been tried for 50 years and it doesn’t work; while the health approach always leads to a bit of tension with those who advocate the first approach,” he said.

Dr Orrell said that what was lacking was a rehab’ centre, which had been turned down on Abbotsbury Road and the funding taken back into NHS coffers.

“But we still need to look at that. I understand it is very hard for residents to agree to have a place like that next to them, but there are NHS properties which could be used, or even social services offices if they become less uses. These might be suitable places for a rehabilitation centre.”

The committee also backed a resolution to extend the scheme of having safety boxes for needles and other drug items in more Weymouth town centre loos.

Community protection officer Graham Duggan says the boxes are already in use in about half a dozen toilets in the town.

The committee is also to ask Public Health Dorset to examine its needle exchange programme and to look at how it might be made more effective.