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 it is not? Meanwhile the restrictions on language mean that any chat-up or curse within the grounds of Greenwich is, in theory at least, potentially criminal.
Still worse, the council has hired a private company on commission to enforce these offences. The toxic mix of broad laws and incentivised officers has led to 2,800 penalty notices being dished out between 2023-5. According to the council website, these included:
- 1,436 for riding or driving a vehicle in a way that caused harassment, alarm or distress;
- 589 for alcohol related anti-social behaviour, including drinking in prohibited areas;
- 150 for ‘anti-social behaviour’;
- 140 for abusive language;
- 69 for anti-social use of vehicles on pedestrian areas;
- 37 for begging, loitering, and sleeping near a cash machine.
The council cites these high penalty figures as evidence that the PSPO has made a ‘difference’. Seeing nearly 3000 people left poorer as a positive difference shows how enforcement has become an end in itself. This PSPO is all the more problematic given that the penalty is due to rise later this year (probably October) to £500 per offence. So, after October, that will be £500 for a chat-up or curse in Greenwich, as well as for loitering in an anti-social manner.
The consultation closes on 22 July; respond if you can. The 2023 consultation had only around 350 participants, in a borough of roughly 290,000 – which is hardly evidence of public support.
Our response is below….
1. Begging
We oppose PSPO restrictions on begging. Begging is not in itself a harm; it is a sign of destitution, and criminalising it fines people who by definition cannot pay. Where begging involves genuine public disorder or is overtly aggressive, existing powers already apply and should be used. A PSPO adds nothing except the power to fine people for asking for help.
This is now also out of step with Parliament. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 repealed the Vagrancy Act 1824, retaining only the offences of facilitating or arranging begging for gain and trespassing with intent to commit a criminal offence. Parliament has deliberately decriminalised simple begging. It would be perverse for Greenwich to re-create that offence locally by fixed penalty notice, months after it was removed from the statute book.
We also note that begging restrictions are routinely drafted broadly enough to catch passive requests for money, including buskers’ hats and charity or Big Issue sales. Any renewed order should exempt these explicitly on the face of the order rather than relying on enforcement discretion.
2. Speech restrictions
We object particularly strongly to the prohibitions on “foul or abusive language”, “comments of a sexual or gender-based nature”, and “threatening or intimidating behaviour”.
These are speech restrictions enforced by on-the-spot fine. Swearing is not a public order matter. Whether words are “abusive”, “threatening” or “intimidating” is a judgment made in seconds by an individual officer with no independent check, and these terms are not defined anywhere on the face of the order. That 140 FPNs have been issued for abusive language shows the power is being used at scale, and we would ask what proportion of these penalties were challenged, cancelled or successfully appealed.
Genuinely threatening or harassing conduct is already criminal under the Public Order Act 1986 and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. A PSPO is not needed for it. What the PSPO adds is the power to fine people for rudeness – and, in practice, for arguing with an enforcement officer.
3. Private enforcement paid by the fine
Our strongest concern is who enforces these powers and how they are paid. We understand the council’s enforcement contractor covers both litter offences and PSPO breaches under a single contract and a single payment model. That matters, because the law on that model has just changed.
Defra’s statutory guidance on litter enforcement powers came into force in April 2026. It states that where external contractors are used, private firms should not be able to receive greater revenue or profits simply from increasing the volume of penalties; that performance management of enforcement staff should never be based on the volume of penalties issued or a fixed amount of revenue to be raised; that enforcement should never be treated as a way to generate income; and that councils should publish the full text of enforcement contracts.
The same standard is about to apply to PSPOs directly. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 creates a duty on the Home Secretary to issue guidance, within six months, addressing the proportionate use of fixed penalty notices for low-level incidents and making clear that where external contractors are used, private firms should not be able to receive greater revenue from volume. Orders renewed to run from 31 October 2026 will be operating under that guidance almost immediately.
Two further changes in the same Act make this urgent. The Act raises the maximum fixed penalty for a PSPO breach from £100 to £500, and extends Community Safety Accreditation Scheme powers so that accredited officers can issue FPNs for PSPO breaches. A contractor paid by the fine now stands to gain up to five times as much per notice, and a wider pool of non-council staff can issue them. Applied to a prohibition on “foul language”, that is a direct financial incentive to provoke and penalise ordinary members of the public.
We therefore ask the council to confirm, before any decision to renew:
– whether PSPO enforcement is carried out by a private contractor, and whether that contractor also holds the litter enforcement contract;
– whether the contractor’s remuneration, or any part of it, is contingent on the issuing, number or value of fixed penalty notices;
– whether the contract has been reviewed against the April 2026 Defra guidance, and what the outcome of that review was;
– whether the full text of the contract has been published, as that guidance requires;
– what the council intends to do to bring the PSPO element into line with the forthcoming Home Office guidance.
We would be glad to discuss any of the above.
Josie Appleton
Director, Campaign for Freedom in Everyday Life