IT'S the morning after the night before at Poole police station. The cells are busy with Friday night revellers sleeping off their hangovers, who will wake, bleary-eyed to the extra headache of a police interview about their drunken misdemeanours.

A musty, putrid smell lingers in the stark cellblock, but the officers working there say it is less objectionable today than the usual weekend stench of stale booze and bodies.

"Alcohol is, as far as we're concerned, the root of all evil," says custody Sergeant Sean Foden.

"I'd say, on a Friday or Saturday night, 85 to 90 percent of what we get is arrests from drunken public order issues, whether it's been fighting, verbal abuse, smashing shop windows or something else."

Pairs of shoes outside the doors of each of the station's 16 cells show they are all full - footwear is confiscated in case the occupants try to attack the police with them.

Bournemouth's 18 cells are also full this morning, as well as 12 of Weymouth's 18 cells, a common occurrence on a weekend.

Often, there are more people under police custody in hospital as well, brawlers who have to be guarded by two police officers until they are patched up and fit enough to be interviewed.

Duty Inspector Derrick Lillywhite checks the overnight log: assaults, criminal damage, domestic violence, drink-driving and reports of two teenage girls who told their parents they were off to see the fireworks and didn't come home.

He says his officers will be kept busy today with the aftermath of last night's revelries.

"Last night, the police officers did what they needed to do to make sure they arrested any suspects and preserved any evidence," he says.

"Now, the victims need to be spoken to in the majority of these cases. We need to get statements from them and prepare an assessment of the damages.

"That will be done in particular when there are people in custody, so we can decide how to deal with them - whether to charge them for their offences or bail them for further enquiries."

It's not just the police who have their work cut out for them on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

Poole council sends out its dedicated cleansing team to mop up the mess left over by revellers.

Ian Poultney, team manager for waste, says: "We have a regular schedule of cleaning, in particular for places like the High Street, which possibly suffer the most the morning after the night before.

"We get an awful lot of litter from takeaways, and the odd amount of drinking-related refuse such as broken glass.

"On occasion, we have had reports of people fishing out faeces from plastic bags in dog bins and hurling them at houses."

And Portsmouth Hoy licensee Michael Eagan says he has to get out the bucket and bleach on weekend mornings to clean up the mess left by heavy drinkers in alleyways near his Quay pub.

"People try to find a little place to go to the toilet, be sick or have sex," he says, blaming other premises for the problem.

"It's definitely an operation to clean up." Both he and Insp Lillywhite hope the new licensing laws, which will allow bars to open up to 24 hours, will combat the problems of binge drinking, rather than making them worse.

"It's going to take a while to kick in, but hopefully it will be like abroad where they come out late rather than cram what they can down their necks and go home at a certain time," says Mr Eagan.

First published: August 22