‘Doggers are destroying my business’
WOMAN SAYS LAND NEAR HER CAFE IS REGULARLY
THE owner of a local cafe has been left horrified by a “dogging site” that is operating yards away from her business.
Sharon Wherrett, co-owner of Big Baps @ Junction 25 in Brighouse, said that she sees “two or three doggers” every morning as she is serving lorry drivers their breakfast.
Her layby cafe, which she runs alongside her sister, Amanda Bissett, is a popular spot for drivers to stop off on their rest breaks and the vast majority of her business is serving lorry drivers breakfast and lunch.
But Sharon, 51, said that her cafe has been blighted by “male doggers” having sex just yards away.
She told the Examiner: “If you came and had breakfast at our cafe you’d see two or three doggers, guaranteed.
“Most people think it’s funny but it’s actually really seedy. There’s a charity that comes down and puts condoms and lube in the trees.”
Sharon claims that the wooded area behind her cafe is trashed by sex waste, including bin bags full of used condoms and old mattresses that are used for people to have sex on.
“If I take you down you will not believe what you’ve seen”, Sharon said, adding: “There are bin liners full of used condoms; I opened a bin liner once and my sister started gipping.
Sharon claims that she has repeatedly reported the issue to her local MP and the police, but said that the issue has persisted to the point where she now needs to warn people who go walking in the local area.
She said: “Families want to walk down there and we have to warn them ‘actually no it’s a male dogging site down there.’
Sharon claims that men come “from Manchester” to attend dogging parties behind the layby, which is having a real impact on her business, not least because lorry drivers often cannot park their vehicles in the layby.
She added: “The truckers who do manage to park there on a night get propositioned, they knock on the cab and say ‘dya fancy a bit?’
She added: “Sunday afternoon is worse and on a night, they come from Manchester and have parties down there. A lot of them have car seats in the car, with baby seats.”
But another issue that Sharon is facing is people ‘car sharing’ and using the layby to park their car while they get a lift into the city with friends.
She said this means lorry drivers are often left without a safe place to park for their legally mandated rest breaks.
She said: “The main thing I’d love to do is for truckers to be able to park. They come in depressed, they’re away from their families and they want a warm meal.
“Obviously I don’t come to work for the fun of it, we lost my mum in the beginning of Covid and we opened about a week after we lost her. To see it come to nothing because people can’t come in, it’s terrible – it’s just soul-destroying.
“But then again the truckers, the plight that they have at the minute, they’re not getting the jobs because the conditions are so bad and then to not be able to get in for a meal...”
Sharon has started a petition calling on local councils to crack down on people using lay-bys to park their car all day.