Thirteen Police officers crowded into the control room of Somerset Police station.

P.c. Jonathan Siddle, heading up the drugs-bust operation, addressed the assembled officers in a stern, authoritative Yorkshire accent.

?Right lads, thank you all for coming,? he began.

?We?re hitting the Cambridge Road area this afternoon, in response to intelligence we?ve received of large amounts of drugs being dealt in the area. This is a fast and fluid operation gentleman ? be ruthless. We?re not here to be nice. Let?s give the drug dealers a little something to think about before Christmas.?was invited along to witness what Police claim will be the first of many operations in the western area of the Island, in response to community concerns that the level of drug activity is beginning to pick up.

The plan was to hit the infamous Cambridge Road ? nicknamed ?Gun Alley? ? in a rapid pincer movement, cutting off all escape routes, before charging into the Charing Cross Tavern, where it was rumoured both ganja (marijuana) and crack were being distributed.

?Drugs are in circulation down there at any time of day,? P.c. Siddle explained.

?As the Community Beat Officer for this area, I have been receiving a lot of complaints from members of the community about the drug activity ? particularly with so many young kids about. So, we are taking a proactive approach. The operation may be a complete flop, but at least we will have demonstrated to the drug dealers that we?re aware of their activities and are prepared to act.?photographer David Skinner and I were then squeezed into the the back of a Police ?cell car? ? complete with hard plastic seats and a sturdy plexiglass divide between the front and back seat.

It took a little under five minutes to reach the end of Cambridge Road. A middle-aged woman to our left was hanging up laundry on the clothesline in her back-yard. A wide-eyed young girl dressed in school uniform waved nervously at the car from the opposite side of the road.

And everything was quiet.

?Strike, Strike, Strike!? came the call over the radio, piercing through the sleepy tranquillity of the late afternoon.

Roaring around the corner onto the Cambridge Road and excitedly scrambling out of the car, we saw a portly man in dark shades being held up against a wall by two Police officers while a sniffer dog bounded energetically into the scrub-land beside the Tavern.

But despite the optimism of our earlier briefings, the area was largely deserted.

Three men, one of whom begged us not to take pictures of his work truck parked nearby, were enjoying a leisurely beer in the Tavern?s sparse back yard.

Inside, a man in his mid-50s sat at a table in the corner staring drunkenly into space, sucking intermittently on the stub of his gnarled Benson and Hedges.

We had clearly arrived at a quiet time.

All around us though, there were sure signs of the illegal activities which go on there.

Nestled amongst the broken beer bottles and empty chips packets, Police found large numbers of small plastic bags, with the remnants of crack still at the bottom. Behind a low wall in an adjacent yard, the sniffer dog uncovered two rocks of crack and a quantity of marijuana concealed within a small black rucksack.

?They are very careful, these people,? P.c. Siddle said.

?They would not dare keep any drugs on them, so they secrete them into the bushes or behind walls and only go and fetch the contents when they are about to make a deal. Without them actually being in possession of the drug, it is very hard to win a conviction.?

Just as the operation appeared to be spiralling into anti-climax, the sniffer dog uncovered a stash of weapons in the roadside bushes ? an unnerving sign of the lengths to which some are prepared to go to protect their patch.

A small, rusted machete with a modified handle wrapped in duct tape, a mini-baseball bat and a menacing black balaclava with eye-holes cut out were laid on the ground and photographed by Police.

P.c. Siddle shook his head.

?You can see by this the sort of mentality where up against,? he lamented.

?The most sinister element is the balaclava because it indicates that there may have been a robbery planned in the area some time soon. But getting these weapons off the street is very important as well.?

We followed the sniffer dog and his handler down the road a bit further, away from the Tavern, and into a large, uninhabited property containing a dilapidated old house, overgrown with foliage.

The tell-tale plastic bags were strewn everywhere.

?You wouldn?t want to come down here by yourself on a Friday night,? P.c. Siddle half joked.

?On a busy night, there are all sorts of people hanging around in here doing deals or taking drugs in the house. We?ve even had reports of prostitution.?

Startlingly, 50 yards away from the site over a small wire-metal fence, a new drug rehabilitation centre has just been established, as part of a recent National Drug Commission initiative.

The irony was not lost on P.c. Siddle.

?This is something that is really concerning us,? he said.

?Just over the fence there are crack addicts trying desperately to get clean while next door people are busy getting high. There was some suggestion that this area be bulldozed and a children?s playground built in its place. But nothing seems to be happening on that front.?

With no arrests made and only a small amount of drugs found, we hopped back into the Police car and made our way across to White Hill Field, another well known drugs area.

As the evening rapidly drew in, five men sitting on the club house veranda were apprehended and searched. Two of them were found to have warrants out for their arrest while one other had over $700 worth of cannabis wrapped in small plastic bags in his pockets.

After two hours work, close to $1,000 worth of drugs had been recovered as well as a clutch of dangerous weapons.

But for an operation which had spent two months in the ?planning phase?, it was clear the Police were somewhat disappointed they had not succeeded in catching some bigger fish.

?Getting the weapons off the street, and apprehending a known drug dealer, was pleasing,? P.c. Siddle said.

?But considering we spent two months planning the raid, it is irritating we did not come up with more. I have my suspicions as to why that is... but I don?t want to go into that. But hopefully this will send a message to all those dealing drugs in the West End to watch out. We know where you are and we?re coming to get you.?