Many were regularly calling ambulances to report an overdose; the less fortunate encountered deceased users in laneways or doorways. This confronting activity persisted for more than two decades in this small localised area. This is where people came to purchase drugs and use them quickly. That's why it's important to note that people are not coming to this area now just to use the injecting room. They were coming anyway. The injecting room was logically located here for that reason, and it's doing what it set out to do, having dealt with 1,130 overdoses already, according to data from the injecting room. Since the injecting room has been around, Ambulance Victoria has reported fewer ambulance call-outs to the area and many clients are getting the help they need to live healthier lives.

The informal injecting areas that once pervaded the area have now moved further afield. Drug paraphernalia left by users at the Richmond public housing estate, near the safe injecting room. Of course, the injecting room was never going to remove all the illegal drug activity in the area, nor was it going to address all the amenity issues that accompanied this culture. But the expectations were high. So it's no wonder local residents are distressed and angry that the level of drug related activity continues and in some areas further afield seems to have increased.

There are still discarded syringes and associated litter in the streets. And there remain some challenging behaviours in public spaces. It can be a very difficult environment for people to live and work in. So much so that some locals are currently calling for the injecting room to be moved or closed, something the state government has stated will not happen. The local council has stepped up with syringe collections – over 90 per cent are collected from disposal units anyway – and have engaged in more frequent cleaning of streets, laneways and open space areas. But the council is not responsible for the criminal behaviour of drug dealing or for the injecting room itself. The police and state government have a role to play. Residents held a meeting about the safe injecting room at the Richmond public housing estate.

It doesn't help that after years of refusing to consider an injecting room, the state government announced in 2017 that it would go ahead with a trial without informing or engaging the local council, who had been at the front line of these local issues for many years and could have highlighted some of the local consequences of this decision. I was mayor at the time, and I only found out about the state government's change of heart after a resident told me they'd been invited along to a media event surrounding it. It also doesn't help that to date that the state government hasn't provided a meaningful public forum where resident concerns can be aired or resolved. Loading In fact, Yarra Council has unanimously called on the government to establish a taskforce of residents, businesses and agencies whose role it would be to share, discuss and resolve any issues in an open and ongoing way, with all parties at the table.

Our request has been met with silence. Information sessions ­- and there have been a few - are not a replacement for ongoing dialogue with residents who live with the impacts of drug culture every day, and who want to help improve the environment. This is a community with lived experience that wants to work with the problem, not be told about it. Establishing the injecting room was a brave and sensible step. But the state government's desire to control everything about this has resulted in local voices not being heard and a level of anger which threatens the social licence for this vital, life-saving facility, a licence which was won over many years of reasoned, compassionate and evidence-based discussion. The thing that's been missing in this debate is indeed compassion.

Loading Compassion for those hopelessly addicted to substances that can ruin lives. And compassion for those residents, living on and off the public housing estate, and businesses, who are dealing with the consequences of very public drug dealing and injecting in their neighbourhoods. Looking for simple, one-step solutions will lead to frustration, as this is not a simple problem. The injecting room can't be all things to all people. Nor will moving it or closing it down make the terrible problem of illicit drug use and addiction go away. We could revert to the previous situation of many drug injecting sites in many public places, causing more harm to more people.