A Shrewsbury priest claims the opening of an exotic dancing club and more sex shops in Shrewsbury will lead to prostitutes openly walking the town’s streets.

Reverend David Uffindell said “young and weak adults” would be corrupted if borough council chiefs allowed the sale of explicit R-18 DVDs at more shops and semi-naked lap dancing at a proposed new town centre club.

The non-stipendiary priest said sex was a “gift from God” and should not be used to make money.

He said he was appalled at a new application by the owners of S X Warehouse, in Harlescott, to sell R-18 films, after the borough council scrapped tough rules which banned new licensed sex shops from opening.

Mr Uffindell also said he was outraged by the application to open an exotic dancing club on Castle Gates.

He said: “Is there no end to the degradation of our society? Do we really want the possibility of nude shows and sexually arousing pole dancing in our town?

“Society may grumble all it wants about our prisons being full, but are we encouraging people to deviate from a reasonable and moral way of living?

“Would you like to see your offspring performing in such a club in an effort to raise people’s sexual feelings, in order to earn a wage so that the owners may get rich quick?”

He added: “Where is the end? I feel in Shrewsbury we are going to have prostitutes walking openly in the streets like they do in bigger towns.

“We are rapidly descending to a country where the minority are cow-towed to by the majority for fear of being seen as racist, or even religious,” he said.

Applicant Jem Symmonds, of Gemini Games Ltd, declined to comment until the application was dealt with.

Peter Hughes, co-owner of the S X Warehouse, said his store was no more likely to corrupt people than the Ann Summers store in the Pride Hill Shopping Centre.

He said the only difference that having a licence would bring the shop was that it could sell R-18 DVDs of hardcore porn.

By Andy Robbins