Tent-ban homeless told they CAN sleep on cardboard boxes

Court draws up ‘inhumane’ list of where rough sleepers ARE allowed to bed down in city

AN ‘inhumane’ list of things homeless people ARE allowed to sleep in has been issued in a court judgement.

The injunction - granted to Manchester council last week - lists sleeping bags and cardboard boxes as among the types of shelter destitute people are permitted to use.

It is part of an attempt by the town hall to stop the city centre’s controversial homeless protest camp repeatedly moving from site to site.

The judgement is intended to apply to protesters in tents, so lawyers drew up a list of what is exempt - in a bid to make sure genuinely homeless people do not get prosecuted.

But solicitor Ben Taylor, who was acting on behalf of camp members in court last week, said drawing up the list was an ‘inhumane and barbaric task’.

The ruling says homeless people can use the following: sleeping bags, blankets, cardboard boxes, benches, doorways and bus shelters. It also makes clear that they can use hostels and overnight charity accommodation.

It bans people from living in tents ‘or other moveable temporary forms of accommodation’ in the city centre to protest against the council’s homelessness policy. Those who breach it could face two years in jail.

But Mr Taylor said that would be ‘difficult to enforce’, adding: “How could Manchester city council prove that someone is protesting about its homeless policy short of the individual holding a placard stating as much?”

The town hall has been chasing camp members around the city centre since April, already evicting them from two squares in an operation said to have cost more than £100,000. Two orders to evict it from both St Ann’s Square and Castlefield were also granted last week. Camp members have moved from Castlefield to under the Mancunian Way on Oxford Road, but are still holding out in St Ann’s Square.

Nigel Murphy, Manchester council’s executive member for neighbourhoods, said: “We have always been very clear that our attempts to close the camps are not aimed at cracking down on lawful protests or in criminalising homeless people.”