SALISBURY’S AGONY OVER NIGHTMARE THAT JUST WON’T END

WITH the country bathed in sunshine, the residents of Salisbury have been making the most of their beautiful surroundings, with many heading for the elegant Queen Elizabeth Gardens.

Regarded by locals as the equivalent of a suburban beach, this expansive park stretches from the Cathedral to the Avon.

But there are no laughing children splashing in the water now: the park is a deadly no-go zone. Last night, as dusk fell, not a soul was to be found.

Instead, police stood guard at strategic points around the circumference, and special tape warned this was a crime scene that would remain closed.

Sources have indicated that the couple struck down here at the weekend were poisoned by suspected ‘crosscontamination’ from Novichok, the Russian-made nerve agent used to poison a KGB defector and his daughter in the city in March.

Understandably, for a city that has slowly been recovering from the horror of that attack and the sight of chemical decontamination teams on the streets, this latest outrage has been a devastating blow.

‘I’ve been taking my children here after school almost every day and we’ve never been told it’s not safe to go in,’ said Sandra Wilson, 34, with two young children in tow, walking past the locked gates. ‘You’d think they’d have said something before.’

Incredibly, it is only now – four months after Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia, 33, were found slumped on a bench – that the park has been shut and people warned not to enter, along with four other sites also suspected of contamination. And all this after a £7.5million cleanup operation was concluded.

In guidance issued by the government’s chief medical officer, those who have visited the park were warned to wash all clothes ‘thoroughly’ – and to wipe ‘personal items’ with baby wipes.

That advice was updated after Charles Rowley, 45 – a registered heroin addict – and his 44-yearold girlfriend Dawn Sturgess, collapsed, foaming at the mouth and gibbering, on Saturday.

AT first, Wiltshire police warned in a statement to local media that ‘contaminated’ crack cocaine or heroin was to blame – saying there was ‘nothing to suggest there is any risk to the wider public’.

What we now know is that, there is clearly a very real and pertinent risk to the public.

Alarmingly, the stricken couple had spent much of the hours before they collapsed near areas already declared ‘decontaminated’ following the first attack.

Dawn Sturgess had been staying at a hostel for people with addictions just a few hundred metres from the bench where the Skripals were found.

She recently began a relationship with Rowley, and spent much of last Friday with her new partner in Salisbury before going back to his flat in nearby Amesbury. It was on Saturday morn- ing that Dawn Sturgess collapsed, frothing at the mouth. She was stretchered from his flat and rushed to Salisbury District Hospital, the same facility that treated the Skripals.

At that stage, Charles Rowley was still unaffected – so much so that he went to a charity hog roast attended by many families at the local baptist church that afternoon. Soon after arriving, Rowley told his friend Sam Hobson he was not feeling well.

‘We went back to his place,’ Hobson said. ‘Then he started sweating. His T-shirt was soaking. His eyes were wide open and red. He began gabbling incoherently and I could tell he was hallucinating. I phoned an ambulance.’

At a news conference on Wednesday, five days after Rowley and Sturgess were admitted to hospital, police finally confirmed they had been exposed to the same nerve agent as the Skripals.

Now, the urgent question everyone is asking here is where – and how – the couple came into contact with the nerve agent. The longer it takes to establish, the more panic will spread.

While the latest victims were last night fighting for their lives, others in Salisbury are despairing at the city’s prospects.

With tour buses diverted to nearby Winchester after the first poisoning in March, some businesses have reported a drop of up to 70 percent in takings as a result of public fears over contamination. Tourist income has dropped by 40 percent, with many deciding against coming to Salisbury cathedral, which is home to a copy of the Magna Carta. Who on earth will want to visit Salisbury now, either to see its ancient monuments, or just to have a pint or go shopping?

As police stood guard outside the nearby Mill pub yesterday, which has been shut since the Skripals drank their before collapsing, Richard Wheeler, owner of a local haberdashery shop, told me he had lost up to £150,000. ‘That’s a lot of money,’ he said. ‘The most horrendous thing has not been knowing what’s going on. It’s all been slightly surreal and I’ve had a few sleepless nights. We just need to carry on.’

SIMILAR feelings of anguish – and stoicism – were expressed by other shopkeepers, many of whom reported having to lay off staff after the first poisoning. Most of them felt that before this week they had started to recover. ‘We were told in March to bag our clothes and wash them,’ said one owner of a restaurant near the original contamination area. ‘But that was five days after the poisoning was discovered. We are told a speck can kill, then that water washes it away. It’s all utterly confusing.

Now, five new areas – including Queen Elizabeth park and Amesbury Baptist Church – have been added to those areas closed off. In the latest advice issued by public health experts, locals have been told to ‘ thoroughly wash your hands with soap and water after cleaning any (contaminated) items and that all clothes should be washed. Reassuringly, the advice adds: ‘None of these actions should damage your washing machine.’

Unfortunately for the hardpressed businesses and fearful residents – not to mention the Novichok victims – severe damage has already been inflicted on this divine corner of England.