CLUTCHING a cup of tea handed out by volunteers, Tracey waves at passing cars. She is one of 80 sex workers who ply their trade in Holbeck’s “managed area”, an industrial part of Leeds where, from 8pm to 6am, prostitutes can solicit and punters can kerb-crawl without getting collared by the police. Tracey says she would rather not be out tonight, but she needs cash for heroin.

Although buying and selling sex are legal in England and Wales, kerb-crawling, soliciting, pimping and running a brothel are not—which, in effect, criminalises the trade. Nobody is satisfied with this arrangement, and there are frequent calls for reform. In 2016 a parliamentary committee said it would investigate the benefits of fully decriminalising the sex trade, as in New Zealand. Two years earlier, a group of MPs called for importing the “Nordic model”, which criminalises punters buying sex, but not prostitutes selling it.

As debate drags on, some areas have taken matters into their own hands. Ipswich opted for the “Nordic model” in 2007, after several prostitutes were murdered in the town. The results are contested. Alan Caton, a retired police officer, says it has wiped out Ipswich’s street sex trade. But others argue that it makes prostitutes more vulnerable, because they have less time to negotiate with clients fearful of arrest. Leeds tried various initiatives to stamp outstreet sex work, including a “kerb-crawler rehab”, which taught busted punters about the evils of prostitution. In 2014, after they failed, it set up the “managed area”.

By ending the cat-and-mouse game of arresting sex workers, the zone has boosted trust: the number of sex workers willing to share their full details when reporting assaults to the police has risen, from 7% to 57%. Such co-operation has helped convict predators, including a lorry driver’s mate who killed a sex worker in the zone in 2015. Nearly all the prostitutes working in Holbeck are drug addicts. Basis Yorkshire, a charity that helps sex workers get drug counselling, says the approach makes their work much easier. Non-enforcement also gives prostitutes more time to vet potential clients and increases their ability to refuse unsafe services, such as unprotected sex, says Kate Lister of Leeds Trinity University.

But, perhaps understandably, locals do not like it. Condom wrappers and dirty baby wipes litter the trading estates. A mechanic says the wind regularly blows such rubbish into his shop. Similar debris spills into nearby residential areas: parents complain of syringes and condoms found near schools. Punters kerb-crawl local women they mistake for sex workers.

Some prostitutes do not stick to the rules. One, touting for business on the zone’s fringes in the middle of the afternoon, says she cannot wait until 8pm because she needs cash for her next heroin fix. Stories abound of family barbecues interrupted by prostitutes and punters cavorting in nearby gardens. Several residents have been threatened after confronting rule-breakers.

A residents’ group is calling for the zone to be scrapped. The councillors who represent the local ward have labelled the scheme a failure: they want to try the Nordic model instead. If it comes down to a battle between the interests of locals and those of prostitutes, it’s a fair bet that the locals will win.