In Oxford, the city council’s three-year city centre public spaces protection order (PSPO) expired on January 31; the council is now consulting on what (if anything) to do next about what it admits is an ‘open drugs market across the city’ and homelessness.
The case of Oxford shows the debate over what PSPOs are for, or as the council puts it ‘whether real-world behavioural change is in fact dependent upon an Order’. Put another way, do you measure an order by an absence of nuisance, or ‘enforcement action’ – a mere six occasions in Oxford in those three years: five fixed penalty notices (four for trading as a peddler, and one for somebody in charge of a dog in a restricted area breaching the PSPO) and one prosecution for remaining in a public toilet without reasonable excuse. Most of the 960 ‘sheets offering advice’ to people breaching the PSPO were to cyclists.
Oxford councillor Tom Hayes who asked for the consultation, said: “A national homelessness tragedy is playing out on our streets, and we’re doing all we can to end the need for anyone to sleep rough. We want all rough sleepers to access services, so I urge everyone with concerns about PSPOs to accurately represent the true situation – Oxford City Council has not, will not, and never will criminalise rough sleeping.”
One complaint is that a PSPO or any order or law is not what’s required – a Manchester PSPO would replace a city centre Alcohol Restriction Zone (also known as a Designated Public Place Order) – but police to enforce the law. Put another way, PSPOs, as the Barnsley report points out, is only one tool among others; and those persistently breaching the terms of the PSPO ‘typically already have offending histories’; which begs the question of all orders and laws; what works, if persistent offenders do not or cannot stop?
Elaine Costigan, Sandwell council’s cabinet member for public health and protection, welcomed a big reduction in disorder in West Bromwich town centre. She said: “PSPOs are an extra tool we are using to prevent problems, alongside a wide range of other action by the council, police, BID and partners. We are also making sure vulnerable people and rough sleepers are offered support.” The council’s environmental protection officers issued 26 fines in the first three months of its three year PSPO, that began in October 2018.
A PSPO came in this month in Darlington town centre. Anna Willey, anti-social behaviour and civic enforcement manager for Darlington Borough Council, said: “Anti-social behaviour is something the public have told us needs addressing in our town centre. We want to make sure everyone feels safe coming into Darlington and to make the town centre as welcoming as it can be. A PSPO is simply an additional tool we now have available to us should other ways of tackling anti-social behaviour not be successful.”
Around the country, other PSPOs typically cover dog fouling (as Rossendale Borough Council in Lancashire is consulting on until next month). Some towns have orders specifically against car cruising (as in Crawley, and Scarborough). Sefton council in Liverpool last month proposed a PSPO against ticket touting at The Grand National Aintree, as Merseyside Police and The Jockey Club raised concerns about touting at the three-day meeting.
However, for such specific orders – Cambridge also has one against touts for punts on the river – the drawback is that the Aintree order would give an ‘authorised officer’, whether police or council, the power to disperse touts, only for up to 24 hours; a tout could simply carry on, beyond the order area.
A PSPO in Bolton town centre came into force in February. Nor are the orders only for big cities; a one-year order for Walton-on-Thames by Elmbridge Council against rowdyism, drinking in public (not pubs) and taking ‘psychoactive substances’ was renewed this month for two years.
London
A borough-wide PSPO in Lewisham went live in January, covering among other things psychoactive substances, ‘unauthorised encampments of any kind’ and dog control and fouling. This month the north-east London borough of Redbridge opened consultation to May 31 on extending its PSPO. A PSPO in the west part of the borough expired in October 2018, against drinking alcohol in public places; now proposed is to add loitering, begging, urinating, spitting and unauthorised events. And the north London borough of Barnet this month began consulting on a PSPO for High Barnet due to ‘alcohol related nuisance’. Barnet’s Designated Public Place Order (DPPO) lapsed in October 2017.
Picture by Mark Rowe; tent outside Boots last year, Tottenham Court Road, central London.
