A two-year trial for a safe injecting room in North Richmond has been green-lighted by the Victorian Government.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, who previously opposed the trial changed his mind after conceding that existing measures to curb a high number of heroin overdoses were failing.

The injecting room will be medically supervised and run from the north Richmond Community Health Centre on Lennox Street.

The Victoria Street Business Association vice president Eddie Nguyen told The Australian newspaper that he believed the drug room would only increase the traffic of drugs in the area where many Vietnamese businesses trade.

But the association’s president Meca Ho believed it was one solution that would allow business owners to feel safer from users who would shoot up in front of customers.

A total of 34 people have died from heroin overdoses within a four block radius near Victoria street in 12 months.

Premier Daniel Andrews says he believed that the supervised injecting room could save lives.

The trial is part of the government’s $87 million dollar drug rehabilitation plan and will see harsher sentencing for people found to be trafficking heroin.

The new centre will be open within the next six months and is modelled on Sydney’s King’s Cross injecting centre which has seen zero deaths from overdoses since its establishment.