RESIDENTS in a city used to film gritty drama Peaky Blinders say a modern-day Tommy Shelby is needed to take down feuding gangs.
Bradford, West Yorkshire, was last year handed the unwanted title of Europe’s most dangerous city because of soaring crime rates.
Its Victorian monuments and buildings were used as the backdrop for many scenes in the series – set in the seedy underworld of early 1900s Birmingham.
The dark BBC One show charts the rise and fall of ruthless Brummie mobster Thomas 'Tommy' Shelby, played by Cillian Murphy, and his gangster family, including stars Paul Anderson, Sophie Rundle and the late Helen McCrory.
But half a mile from the Little Germany area of the city where scenes from the hit programme were filmed, locals told how their lives have been blighted by gang violence, drug dealing and fly tipping.
Bradford born-and-raised Richard Goodsell, 59, said: "It’s proper rough around here.
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"Nobody has invested any money in the place – just look at the state of the buildings.
"The crime levels are pitiful – there’s drug dealers on every corner, gangs are fighting each other, there are kids stealing cars.
"There 16 and 17 – they’re coming out of school straight into a life of crime.
"Honestly there’s stuff that happens here which makes Peaky Blinders look like a children’s TV programme.
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"We need someone like Tommy Shelby to sort it all out."
Like in Peaky Blinders, residents fear being caught in the middle of territorial gang wars.
In October, thugs with guns ram-raided a shop just a 10-minute walk from the Cater Street warehouse used as the Shelby Company Ltd boardroom.
Two yobs with shotguns jumped out of the cars in what locals pinned to a clash between two warring gangs.
Andrea, 40, who moved to Bradford from London six years ago, said: "It’s very dangerous around here now.
"Yesterday one man asked me what the time was and then he tried to steal my phone.
"It’s getting really bad. It’s just getting worse and worse.
"You don’t dare go out at night-time – you don’t feel safe. There are drug gangs."
Honestly there’s stuff that happens here which makes Peaky Blinders look like a children’s TV programme.
Andrea also bemoaned fly tippers trashing the streets and said the area was plagued with rodents.
Pointing to a sofa dumped at the side of the road, she said: "There are rats everywhere – it’s like a slum with all the fly tipping.
"But the council doesn't do anything."
Mum-of-two Diana Gainaru, 42, added: "The rats are a problem.
"It’s because some people don’t bother to use the bins.
"They can’t be bothered to walk to the bin, so they just throw their litter on the floor.
"Some people have no respect."
And at the hillside Undercliffe Cemetery, where Peaky Blinders funeral scenes were filmed, volunteers hit out at fly tippers who dump their rubbish among graves.
Carrying bin bags filled with detritus, Val Woolley, 80, told how the historic graveyard had been used for night-time raves and drug-taking.
'WE NEED A REAL-LIFE TOMMY SHELBY'
She said: "I’ve filled four bags of rubbish today – someone has got to do it.
"There are people who come here at the weekend and I have no idea what they get up to, but they leave lots of rubbish behind.
"The vast majority of people respect the cemetery as a Christian burial site but there are a small minority of juveniles who don’t know any better."
Steve Lightfoot, 68, chairman of the Undercliffe Cemetery charity, showed The Sun Online spots where Peaky Blinders was filmed among the site’s 23,000 graves.
The non-profit is looking at setting up guided tour for fans in a bid to fundraise.
He said: "We’ve had Peaky Blinders, Emmerdale and Billy Liar film here – and the Bronte sisters' loyal nursemaid Nancy De Garrs is buried here.
"So we think there is definitely scope for encouraging more visitors."
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At the Cater Street warehouse – which also doubled up for boxing scenes in Peaky Blinders – roads were closed off for the filming of star-studded Netflix movie Six Triple Eight.
Its owners, the Sekhon Group, reckon the building has brought in millions of pounds in revenue after being used for hits including Gentleman Jack, Downton Abbey and BBC Two’s Jay's Yorkshire Repair Shop.
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