The Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 includes a swathe of unprecedentedly open-ended powers, which significantly undermine rights in public spaces.
The Manifesto Club is focusing on ‘Public Spaces Protection Orders’ (PSPOs), which give local authorities the power to ban any activity they judge to have a ‘detrimental effect’ on the ‘quality of life’ of a locality.
See our briefing document – Buskers and homeless under threat from new ASB powers
Councils have used Public Spaces Protection Orders and other powers to restrict busking in town and city centres. This briefing below is co-published by the Campaign for Freedom in Everyday Life and Keep Streets Live, and gives a survey of council restrictions…
For over a year, playing any musical instrument has been banned in the centre of Birmingham. Street preaching has also been banned. The on-the-spot fine is about to go up to £500. We are gathering to protest against this ban, outside the…
The introduction of Respect Orders today will allow people to be imprisoned for nothing more than entering a particular area of town, asking for 50p, or feeding the birds. We know this because this is exactly what happened under the forerunner of…
The hike in busybody fines From 26 October, councils will be able to issue £500 penalties for ‘busybody’ offences such as swearing, feeding the birds, busking, begging, street preaching, or failing to show a dog poo bag. The current maximum penalty for…
We’ve been in touch with a young man from Milton Keynes about the car cruising PSPO, which has had a big effect on the social life of the city. Although the PSPO is supposed to target anti-social or dangerous behaviour – such…
Coventry Council is planning a new PSPO that will ban independent political campaigning in the city centre. If it goes ahead, only those who have been formally approved by the council will be able to use amplification or put up a small campaigning stall. This replicates the order in Leicester, which has seen dozens of religious groups given warnings and a pensioner fined for running a campaign against council cuts. These orders mean that the council gets to decide which causes can be heard or seen in the city – which is a violation of free speech rights and democracy. (See our…
Greenwich Council is currently consulting on an extension to its PSPO – an order that bans a swathe of activities, including drinking in public, foul language, persistent begging, ‘anti-social loitering’ within 10m of a cash machine, ‘anti-social use of vehicles’ (including bikes), anti-social behaviour, and (perhaps most absurdly) ‘comments made of a sexual or gender-based nature’. The key thing is that most of these offences are in the eye of the beholder – ie, the official has the power to judge whether or not an offence has been committed. Who is to say when loitering, drinking or cycling is ‘anti-social’, and when…
Nottingham City Council is currently consulting on a new PSPO, which we are opposing and have submitted a response. The plans as currently worded would fine people for everyday, harmless things – playing music in the street, asking passers-by for money, or selling the Big Issue in the ‘wrong’ spot – even when no one is actually being harmed. It treats poverty and ordinary street life as anti-social behaviour, punishing buskers, the homeless and street collectors for who they are rather than for anything genuinely harmful they’ve done. And the test for breaking the rules is so vague – anything causing ‘disturbance’…
Councils in England and Wales have introduced a swathe of bizarre bans that will turn ordinary people into unwitting criminals. Councils have used Public Spaces Protection Orders (which allow them to ban any activity they judge to have a ‘detrimental effect on…
This week, the Crime and Policing Bill is passing through the ping pong stage in the Commons and Lords. This bill will increase the penalties for Public Spaces Protection Orders – which ban activities such as standing in groups, feeding birds, or loitering – from £100 to £500. Most of these penalties are currently issued by private companies on commission – the company is paid a portion (normally 80-90%) of penalty income, and therefore has a direct incentive to issue as many penalties as possible. The Liberal Democrat peer Tim Clement Jones introduced an amendment to prevent private companies from directly profiting…
We are working with political campaigners in Leicester, who are opposing the council’s ban on political campaigning (a new law prohibits displaying banners or flags, amplification, and setting up political stalls). Here is news from campaigners about their recent protest, when they set up campaign tables in defiance of the ban. We have written to the council, asking them to remove this restrictive and undemocratic law. Six different campaigning groups defied Leicester City Council’s ban on campaign tables and set up close to each other in the city centre on 7 February. While the event was happening City Wardens made no attempt…
On 25 February, peers passed an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill to ban fining for profit for ‘busybody’ offences. The amendment states that companies ‘must not receive, directly or indirectly, any financial benefit that is contingent upon the (a) issuing of a fixed penalty notice, or (b) the number or value of fixed penalty notices issued’. This would mean that ‘payment per fine’ contracts – under which over 14,000 penalties are issued each year – would be declared invalid. Council ‘busybody’ powers (Public Spaces Protection Orders, and Community Protection Notices) have led to new bans on activities such as feeding…