...while in the real world she’s confronted by a constituent too afraid to leave her home

NICOLA Sturgeon was confronted yesterday by a constituent who told her she is ‘terrified’ to walk the streets.

Allison Smith, 63, challenged the First Minister during a meeting of the Scottish Government’s ‘travelling Cabinet’, telling how she had been mugged twice in 15 months in Glasgow’s deprived Govanhill.

The grandmother of 13, a lifelong resident of the area, accused Miss Sturgeon of failing to clean it up, despite promises made during her Holyrood election campaign in 2016.

Govanhill, part of the First Minister’s Glasgow Southside constituency, has become notorious for slums, overcrowding and fly-tipping. Speaking to Miss Sturgeon at the event, Mrs Smith, said: ‘I want to know what’s being done? It’s not getting any better, it’s getting worse.’

The question and answer session descended into a row after Miss Sturgeon tried to tell the angry resident, who was supported by a disabled group, that ‘things had improved’ and that the SNP had allocated £30million of funding to the area.

Miss Sturgeon told the crowd at the Emirates Arena, in Glasgow’s East End: ‘There are some deep-seated, long-standing challenges in Govanhill but there’s also a lot of investment and effort going into tackling those issues.’

She blamed high numbers of private landlords in the area for problems with ‘cleanliness’ and ‘overcrowding’.

The MSP said: ‘Govanhill has more privately let property than any other part of Glasgow and a higher density of privately let property.

‘Often the condition of a lot of the housing is very poor, which then leads to other issues around cleanliness.

‘Sometimes people are living in overcrowded conditions which can spill out into some issues on the street.’

As well as £30million investment over a four-year period, efforts were being made with cleanliness and street cleaning, she said. The area also had ‘dedicated’ resources such as pest control and higher police numbers than other areas.

‘These challenges, I know, are very frustrating for local people. I think things are improving and the proof of that pudding is people locally feeling that, and that’s the challenge we have to continue to focus on,’ she said.

Interrupting the SNP leader, Mrs Smith said: ‘It’s terrible. I’m terrified to go out. I have to get one of my sons to take me down the road.’

Rattled, Miss Sturgeon then spoke over the pensioner, asking her to visit one of her constituency surgeries, to which Mrs Smith replied: ‘I have, plenty of times.’

It comes a year after the Scottish Daily Mail exposed the squalor faced by residents of the area, one of the poorest in Scotland. An investigation found damp flats overrun with rodents and streets branded ‘no go’ areas as a result of an influx of Romanian families who residents claim ‘intimidate locals’. In some streets, landlords pack up to 18 people into two-bedroom flats.

Speaking after the event, Mrs Smith said: ‘Just before Christmas, a group of girls – I think they were Romanian – grabbed my phone from my hand and in February last year someone snatched my bag.

‘Whenever I come home I lock the door behind me and cry because it is all I can do.

‘They gather in gangs in the streets and intimidate everyone. We have complained to the police lots of times but they just tell us it is part of their culture.

‘Nicola Sturgeon has vowed to change things but she hasn’t. She’s a breaker of promises. She says things are getting better but she must be wearing rose-tinted spectacles because things are worse than ever.’

A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: ‘We are happy that the First Minister is recognising our efforts to help the problem of overcrowding in Govanhill.’