£100 on the spot fines planned for begging, street drinking and loitering in Sheffield
Flouting the rules could land you with a bill of up to £1000
New rules to crackdown on street drinking, begging and drug use in Sheffield City Centre will be rolled out – and flouting them could see you fined £1,000.
Sheffield City Council’s communities, parks and leisure policy committee has today (December 9) decided to go ahead with the proposed public space protection order for the city centre to tackle anti-social behaviour.
A report said the city centre, including the area around the train station, is impacted by anti-social behaviour that is persistent and is having, or is likely to have, a detrimental effect on the quality of life of those who live, work and visit. The key types of antisocial behaviour were said to be drinking alcohol, begging, loitering, drug use and urination and/or defecation.
Anyone flouting the rules could be handed a £100 on-the-spot fine or, if the matter goes to court, a £1,000 fine.
During the public questions part of the meeting, a member of the public who is working for Ben’s Centre, a small charity supporting people involved in alcohol and substance misuse, said many of their service users are “victims and perpetrators of anti-social behaviour in the city centre and it seems clear that the proposed PSPO is designed to target this cohort”.
He said there are “a small and identifiable” Sheffield residents who use alcohol in public spaces, beg on the high street, sleeping rough without having access to toilet facilities.
He added: “Within this group, it’s not an exaggeration to say the vast majority have a mental and/or physical disability.”
He asked members why there was not an impact report based on disability and he asked whether the thoughts and opinions of people and organisations working in this field were sought, at all.
On behalf of the council, committee chair Cllr Kurtis Crossland said “the approach to enforcement will include a holistic assessment of the individual circumstances” ensuring support is available.
Cllr Crossland said with the PSPO, officers will be able to intervene earlier “to tackle specific activities cause or likely to cause anti-social behaviour”.
He added this will allow officers to focus on prevention, advice and guidance.
He reiterated that the PSPO “applies to everyone, equally and it’s about behaviour, not about the person”.
Cllr Crossland said there was a legal threshold that must be met before a behaviour can be deemed to have breached the restrictions in the order.
Other members of the public – whose questions were read out loud as they were not present at the meeting – asked the council what could be done to avoid the criminalisation of vulnerable people and people with nowhere else to go.
Also, the same person raised issues with the potential of protestors being handled by the police as those “loitering”.
Cllr Crossland said the right to protest will not be affected by the PSPO.
Another person said the wording of the PSPO “seems purposely vague and open to discriminatory interpretation against anybody that doesn’t look or behave in a conventional way”.
Cllr Crossland said in order to breach the PSPO, two legal thresholds must be met and first a written notice would be issued warning before any further escalation.
During a presentation ahead of the debate, members were told that more than 1,200 individuals and 77 organisations took part in the public consultation process and the “vast majority” of them had witnessed or experienced anti-social behaviour in the last 12 months.
Members heard that more than two-thirds were in favour of the PSPO but every one in four were against the restrictions on begging and alcohol.
At the debate, councillors raised many issues including questions around proportionality, discrimination, disability and what will happen if those drinking leave the centre for other parts of the city.
One of the main issues raised was why weren’t disabled people and minoritised communities considered in the equality impact assessment – this was raised by Cllr Nabeela Mowlana and Cllr Marieanne Elliot.
Because of this, Cllr Elliot also suggested the decisions should be deferred but she was not supported in doing so.
At the end, members approved the proposal of introducing a PSPO in Sheffield City Centre with only Cllr Elliot voting against it.