To manage anti-social behaviour in city parks and public spaces, Brighton and Hove City Council is looking into a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) for its parks, areas of the seafront and privately owned land.
The January 2015 print issue of Professional Security featured Brighton, which hosted a Designing out Crime Association (DOCA) conference.
A July 9 report to the council said that such spaces are ‘frequently occupied by people sleeping in caravans, vehicles or tents. The occupation of these areas causes nuisance and annoyance for settled communities. In some instances in addition to the occupation of the land there have been reports of damaging land by driving on it, defecating nearby, leaving rubbish and criminal damage.”
Such campers may be gypsies and travellers, or people in tents and otherwise rough sleepers, or visitors to the Sussex seaside resort. The council report noted that injunctions, powers under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 to move people on and bylaws have been used to manage occupation of land by caravans, ‘with varying degrees of success’. As van dwellers most go by nicknames, that makes identifying them as required for injunctions difficult. If an injunction is appealed, land occupation can go on; and private land occupied by tents has likewise been hard to deal with.
The council is thinking of a trial PSPO at land most affected by unauthorised occupations. As the report pointed out, besides the need to be legally in the clear – for instance under equalities law (the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998) – the council would also have to consider how it would enforce the orders.
Background
The Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act became law last year; it did away with previous Labour law to tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB) which according to the then Coalition Government was too bureaucratic; and orders such as ASBOs were not the Coalition claimed deterring a persistent minority. Hence a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) replaces the ASBO, among other changes to local government powers.
Pictured: Brighton city centre graffiti. Photo by Mark Rowe.
