Here’s a round-up of some of the latest Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) as proposed or renewed by local government in England and Wales. To briefly introduce PSPOs, they date from the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. When brought in by a council, A PSPO covers anti-social behaviour (ASB) usually on high streets and in town centres, though a trend has been towards borough or council-wide orders at the risk of watering down enforcement.
A PSPO runs for typically three years; in north Kent, Dartford first made a Town Centre PSPO (signage, pictured by Mark Rowe) in 2017 to address various forms of anti-social behaviour, and has just renewed. Like many orders, theirs covers littering, and urinating in public. Added now is if anyone rides an e-scooter in High Street, Market Place or Lowfield Street (up to the junction with Market Street) could be issued with a £100 fixed penalty notice (usually given by council officers, or private contractors hired by the council, or police). Those doing repeated or serious breaches can be taken to court where they may be fined more.
Dartford Council leader Jeremy Kite said: “We’re not the kind of council to see easy pickings in fines. This PSPO is about responding to the things people tell us they care about, that make our town centre safer and better for everyone.
“E-scooters are a hazard for pedestrians. They might have their benefits elsewhere, but we need to think about the dangers they pose to vulnerable people who have sight or mobility issues. We want to keep our town centre a safe place where businesses can thrive and people can enjoy themselves, and this renewed PSPO is another step towards preserving that environment.”
In Slough, the council has just finished its consultation on a proposed borough-wide PSPO, to prohibit street drinking and alcohol related anti-social behaviour and nuisance. The offence would be failing to comply with an officer’s request to stop the consumption of alcohol or failing to surrender containers when requested to do so. Authorised officers could only request that alcohol consumption cease on the grounds that anti-social behaviour is or is likely to occur. Here Thames Valley Police will be the main authority to enforce the order, the council says.
Iftakhar Ahmed, lead member for community cohesion, planning, public health, public protection and leisure, said: “The previous order was in place to make it easier to target anti-social behaviour in certain locations. However, expanding it to cover the whole borough will make it simpler and easier to enforce and for people to understand.
“It will be part of a toolkit to tackle lower-level behaviour that has a detrimental effect on the quality of life of residents.”
Torbay Council has been consulting this month on PSPOs. One covers parts of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham and would prohibit the consumption of alcohol in defined public spaces and the carrying of unsealed containers of alcohol. A new PSPO for Torquay town centre, and would give powers for the Police, and authorised officers, to direct anyone causing nuisance or disorder out from a town centre ‘dispersal zone’ and not to return for up to 24 hours. A third consultation relates to a PSPO to control dog fouling (a typical use for PSPOs) across the Torbay area.
David Thomas, Leader of Torbay Council, said; “We’ve been listening to local people that live and work in Torbay who have shared their concerns over on-street drinking and a fear of anti-social behaviour. The Public Spaces Protection Orders are part of a multi-pronged approach we have recently announced to deal with a number of these concerns.
“The proposed PSPO for alcohol free zones represents a change to current restrictions, which, if approved, would mean that people can no longer drink alcohol in defined streets and public areas of our towns.”
In Wales, a PSPO by Camarthenshire County Council covering Llanelli Town Centre came into force last month, with a new power to enable the police to require someone to surrender drug paraphernalia. The PSPO geographical area has also been extended.
Similarly, in the West Midlands, City of Wolverhampton Council is consulting until March 31 on a city centre PSPO, that would give police powers to ask groups of three or more to vacate the area (inside the ring road) if there is reason to believe they are causing or likely to cause a nuisance, threat or alarm to others, and to remove face coverings if they have no reasonable grounds to wear them. The council stresses that the PSPO is against those covering their face to disguise their identity; ‘the PSPO would not discriminate against people who legitimately wear a face covering for medical reasons, or who wear face coverings for religious purposes such as Niqab or Berkas and medical face coverings’, the consultation document says.
Jasbir Jaspal, the City of Wolverhampton Council’s Cabinet Member for Adults and Wellbeing, said: “Data shows an increase in incidents of anti-social behaviour in the city centre over recent years, and while a number of measures have been put in place to address this, more robust and long term measures are needed to ensure that Wolverhampton remains a safe place to visit, work and live.”
The consultation speaks further of shops in the city centre having seen an increase in petty theft, and recent surveys found ASB and groups of people hanging around as the top concern for people visiting the city centre, and indicating that ‘more robust measures are needed’, according to the council.
And similarly Sheffield City Council is consulting to March 25 on a PSPO to cover the city centre, the inner ring road, Sheffield Railway Station, and Steel Steps, and against drinking alcohol on the streets, begging, loitering and drug use. A report to councillors stated that begging and vagrancy, rowdy behaviour and street drinking were ‘persistent’.
When the council made a survey of city centre businesses, 100 businesses returned the survey ‘of which 97 had experienced ASB in the last year with 79 reporting seeing ASB on a daily basis. Seventy-one businesses felt that ASB in the City Centre has increased. Anecdotally, businesses also raised concerns about how the behaviours could impact their customers.’ Similarly, British Transport Police (BTP) based at Sheffield Train station, a ‘gateway’ into the city, report ‘frequently experiencing passive and aggressive begging, drinking and associated ASB’.
The document went on to the country-wide question of what to do about such ‘activities’, whilst anti-social, yet not criminal: namely the ‘visible presence of people loitering whilst intoxicated which isn’t a crime unless they are committing ASB. There is a small minority of clients who, despite the ongoing work of services, remain at significant risk and vulnerability. Although allocated to relevant workers, some clients do not engage. They frequently become involved in risky and persistent low-level crime and ASB placing themselves and others at risk and often present as chaotic and aggressive.’
The document goes on to show that PSPOs are at once a deterrent, and yet only disperse some people to do the same nuisances, elsewhere: “people are travelling to Sheffield to beg as the towns and cities where they live are subject to PSPOs and they are unable to beg on their home ground”. The document also acknowledges the risk of a PSPO displacing nuisances outside the city centre, to areas that already have ‘some ASB issues’. On this point the document adds: “The enforcement framework will aim to mitigate some of the risk of dispersal by aiming to understand and address underlying and unmet need as per the harm reduction approach.”
As a further nod to that general point that those being anti-social have health or drug addiction issues, that fines or other criminal justice tools don’t touch, the document states that the proposed PSPO’s enforcement will be use of fines ‘where appropriate’ but not as ‘the default response’. The document argues that the extra powers of the PSPO ‘could have positive outcomes for some of the city’s most vulnerable residents’.
At a Sheffield City Council Communities Parks and Leisure Committee meeting last month, Green councillors voted against the proposed PSPO. One of them, Marieanne Elliot, warned that the unwanted behaviours might be displaced to adjacent communities around the city centre. She said: “The council could use resources more effectively by working on tackling some of the root causes, rather than considering punishing people with punitive sanctions. There is extensive empirical research that says this sort of action can disproportionately affect the most vulnerable; people experiencing trauma, poverty, unmet support needs, those excluded from the housing market. There are excellent voluntary sector organisations in Sheffield, helping to support these people, and they could do with more support.
“It is frustrating that, on one hand, council licences are granted to 24 hour booze shops all over the city centre and on the other, they are considering banning city centre drinking in public places. Also, the council could provide more public toilet facilities in the city centre.
“It is reported that Sheffield is one of the safest cities in the UK. We also heard that the police now have 50 per cent more officers operating in the City Centre, this is very welcome news and surely means there is more opportunity to address actual illegal activity.”
