Case Studies

PSPOs continue

by Mark Rowe

Councils in England and Wales are continuing to expand their use of Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs); although cases around the country suggest that a policy is only as good as its enforcement.

Among new PSPOs, Chelmsford already has a PSPO covering the city centre, that covers typical nuisance behaviour such as aggressive begging, and fly-posting. Now it’s proposing a PSPO for the whole area, against roadside advertisements and fly posting. Separate PSPOs also cover dog fouling; and Hylands Park, the venue for the annual V Festival in August, for the fortnight around that event, and banning ‘legal highs’ and contraband tickets.

Worcester City Council is consulting to May 30 on a PSPO for the city centre, against street drinking (other than on licensed premises). Alice Davey, Head of Community Services at Worcester City, said: “As well as causing a disturbance to residents, street drinking can affect local businesses and puts huge pressure on police time and hospital resources. Adopting the proposed order would give the council and police greater powers to intervene at an earlier stage and to take punitive action where appropriate.”

In Hertfordshire, Rickmansworth-based Three Rivers District Council is piloting a ‘school PSPO’; for preventing vehicles dropping off and picking up a pupil from Shepherd Primary School, Daybreak Nursery and Children’s Centre on Shepherds Lane, Mill End.

In Buckinghamshire, Chiltern District Council recently introduced a PSPO covering car parks, against anti-social behaviour (ASB), skateboarding and ‘motor vehicle stunts’.

PSPOs are not new – they came in via the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, itself replacing Labour Government laws that brought in similar orders. Nor are the problems – so-called low-level crime such as anti-social drinking in public spaces, dog fouling and ASB in general – new. PSPOs are mature enough that the early ones are coming up for renewal; for instance in Folkestone.

In south Wales, the Newport Now Business Improvement District (BID) has set out its views on the PSPO covering the city centre, as made by Newport City Council. The BID believes anti-social behaviour, street drinking and aggressive begging have worsened since the order came into force in 2015. It says that ASB, particularly from youths on bicycles, is a daily torment for most businesses in the city centre. However, as the BID points out, enforcing a restriction there runs the risk of moving the problem elsewhere. As this implies, and as the BID says explicitly, what matters is proper enforcement.

As the BID sets out, the ban on ‘begging in an anti-social manner’ is the ‘most contentious and controversial section of the PSPO’ in the city (as in other places). The BID acknowledges that rough sleeping and homelessness is a ‘social problem’ rather than a crime and rather than a ban on all begging, the BID asks for specific bans on begging within certain distances of cashpoints and payment machines. “These are places where many people feel intimidated into giving money to beggars.”

Similarly in Cambridge, where a PSPO was made by the city council in September 2016 against ‘soliciting for custom’, in a word (verbally) touting, for punts on the River Cam – a popular tourist attraction in summer – councillors heard that touts ‘had shown no respect for authority, by flaunting [sic] the PSPO’; and ‘punting companies had found ways around the enforcement by purposefully employing young people [under 18] to tout, many were too young to receive a fixed penalty fine’. As a report to councillors by Safer Communities Manager Lynda Kilkelly reviewing the first year of the order set out, touts got around the order by carrying clipboards and still harassed passers-by and blocked pavement; behaviour which however did not count as a breach of the order. The city council enforcement officers (who have other things to do) and police can issue fines; although the report noted that police had not issued any, as touts left the PSPO area when they saw uniformed police. Or, touts shifted to the railway station (outside the city centre streets covered by the PSPO).

As featured in the May 2018 print issue of Professional Security magazine, Ealing Council in west London in April decided on a PSPO around the Marie Stopes clinic on Mattock Lane, banning protest in a ‘safe zone’, to provide unimpeded access to the clinic; while allowing a place for protests and vigils. The anti-abortion campaign group SPUC (Society for the Protection of Unborn Children) has written to the new Home Secretary Sajid Javid about the announcement by previous Home Secretary Amber Rudd of a consultation on protest outside abortion clinics; and ‘what, if any, recommendations your department will make to the Government in the light of the decision by Ealing Council to implement a PSPO to outlaw help for women and public prayer’.

In Nottinghamshire, after a Ashfield District Council PSPO, police and council Community Protection officers recently ran a Sunday ‘night of action‘ against car cruising on the M1 at Junction 27. That ‘multi-agency operation’ issued on-the-spot fixed penalty notices (FPNs) for driving offences. Christian Chapman, Ashfield councillor and Portfolio Holder for Crime Prevention and Community Safety, welcomed the PSPO working in practice. He said: “Car cruising in these areas has been a significant problem for a number of years, and issuing these notices demonstrates to the public that we are serious about tackling this problem and that their behaviour will not be tolerated.”

And in east London officers of Barking and Dagenham council’s Estates Police Team issued a man with a £100 FPN after he was caught urinating in Abbey Ruins, Barking.

Picture by Mark Rowe; man sprawled flat on pavement, weekday afternoon, Worcester city centre, August 2017.

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