Impact of coronavirus on begging in Luton town centre to be assessed, says council

Plans approved by the executive will remove the ‘failure to stop begging’ section from the town centre public spaces protection order (PSPO).

Other options to enforce the PSPO include warnings, restorative justice, a partnership assessment pathway, fixed penalty notices, prosecution and other legal remedies, such as injunctions.

An individual seen begging would be asked to stop by an enforcement officer, at present.

“If the person complies then no further action is taken other than signposting to support and intervention,” according to a report to the executive.

“If he or she continues to beg then they have committed an offence of breaching the PSPO.

“Compliance with requests to stop has been high,” said the report.

“But there has not been longer term behaviour change and begging continues to take place on a persistent basis.”

The town centre PSPO covers street drinking, begging, urinating and defecating, spitting, dog fouling and dog control.

Labour Lewsey councillor Aslam Khan told the executive: “If you look at our approach it’s quite unique.

“The first thing we do is look at what those needs are, trying to get that partnership assessment done.

“The second bit is the warning and the third is to look at a fixed penalty.

“We haven’t issued any fixed penalties yet. The whole aim is to offer a community remedy.

“The last one is to prosecute and we don’t want to prosecute anyone,” he said.

“A lot of these people do get all the help they need, but they still chose to beg.”

Labour Lewsey councillor Jacqui Burnett wondered what the impact of the coronavirus crisis on begging has been and about the psychological impact of social distancing going forward.

“Can we have this report back in six months time to update behaviour during the lock down?” she asked.

Councillor Khan, who’s the executive member for safer, stronger communities, replied: “We know it’s an evolving situation.

“We’re not rolling it out immediately as more significant things take priority at the moment.

“We feel it’s important to have a policy in place as and when we move forward.

“What we are seeing is that money is fuelling those behaviours, so we need to disrupt that and do things differently.”

Labour Lewsey councillor Mahmood Hussain said: “Some are genuine homeless, some are very professional, some have a lot of other problems, such as drugs and alcohol.

“Even if you fine them eight or nine times, all they do is go to prison for a week or ten days and then they’re back in Luton again.

“There is no way of them paying the money.”

Councillor Khan responded: “We agree there are people with some addiction problems and that’s why we have a multi-agency approach.

“The drug and alcohol team is one referral pathway.

“But we do find people choose to beg simply because they can make more money.

“We need to have a policy which deters them from doing it and tackles it more effectively.”

The council’s service director public protection Sarah Hall said: “We are happy to come back in six months time.

“We can compare this to a time when we’ve not been dealing with coronavirus and the changing behaviour of our population.”