A Bradford drugs worker today called for controversial 'shooting galleries' to be given a trial in the UK.

Yvonne Oliver, director of Buttershaw-based Ripple project, made her call after embarking on a fact-finding mission to Amsterdam, which included a tour of a controversial 'shooting gallery'.

Fierce debate has raged as to whether the centres - where addicts are free to inject themselves with heroin - should be introduced in Britain.

Today Mrs Oliver said: "Before we went out there I felt these places gave out the wrong message - the message that we have already lost the battle."

But Mrs Oliver, herself an advisor to the powerful National Treatment Agency, said she now believed they were a valuable tool to engage "hard-to-reach groups" who might not seek out treatment themselves.

As well as providing a safer environment for them to inject, basic health services and a way keep off the streets and away from crime, drug workers were able to form relationship with addicts and offer them help, said Mrs Oliver.

Dutch statistics show that 22 per cent of those using the centres later sign up for treatment to kick their habits.

Mrs Oliver said: "There is a strong argument for a lot of the good work going on there."

And while she said it should not necessarily be Bradford, Mrs Oliver added: "I think it should be piloted and closely monitored in an area in Britain where there is a serious problem with drug taking and homelessness."

And other workers with the Ripple project are helping to draw up the national battle plan against drug abuse.

Ripple members spoke to Bob Ainsworth - the minister with responsibility for the national fight against drug abuse - at the Labour Party conference and plan to meet his Tory counterparts.

Lindsey Cowgill, 26, a former heroin addict who took part in the tour, said: "I think it is very important that the people putting together policies on drugs can speak to people like us who have first-hand experience.

"If you are a male midwife, you might have a good knowledge of the subject but you will never know exactly what the people you are working with are going through."