Police want the issue resolved

A deputation from the steering group, which includes local residents and prostitutes representatives, told Edinburgh City Council to get more involved in addressing the issue of a tolerance zone.

The group told councillors that a tolerance zone in a non-residential area, where working girls can sell sex, remains the best option.

Margo MacDonald, a Scottish National Party MSP, told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that the "problem is as old as time and it has to be tackled".

She said Edinburgh's policy of toleration had proved to be a great success and that a way of maintaining it must be found.

"A group of people in Edinburgh, representing all sorts of different interests including residents and business people have been meeting to try and solve the problem," she said.

"There is no doubt about it, the policy of tolerance in Edinburgh has resulted in much lower figures as regards sexually transmitted diseases, there's much less violence, there's no pimps, there's no lassies under 16 recorded working last year and so on.

Margo MacDonald supports the idea of a tolerance zone

"There's so many reasons why the police, social workers and health authorities would prefer to see the history of the last 20 years built upon."

Police announced that the original tolerance zone would be moved from Coburg Street in Leith after local people said during consultation that they were unhappy with prostitutes operating in the area.

As an alternative, officers identified a part of Salamander Street as the most suitable area.

It was thought that the industrial estate would provide the ideal location as it was quiet and could be monitored.

But people in the wider area, which has undergone an economic renaissance in recent years, reacted angrily and demanded that the tolerance zone be moved again.

In the face of the local opposition, Chief Superintendent Pat Byrne announced just weeks into the new initiative that it would come to an end on 30 November.

But he warned that unless a solution was found prostitution could "slip back 20 years" to a time when it created enormous health problems and crime.

Thursday's consultation was the latest attempt to find a resolution to the problem but it is unlikely that any announcement will be made after the meeting.