Councils turning to ‘busybody’ powers on the rise

COUNCILS ARE increasingly using “busybody” powers to criminalise acts such as swearing, dog walking and busking in public spaces, according to a civil liberties group.

Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs), dubbed a “blank cheque” for arbitrary use of power by the Manifesto Club, have targeted people for loitering, leafleting, skateboarding, sleeping rough and spitting, according to data released under freedom of information requests.

The group reports that from March 2016 to June 2017, 189 PSPOs were issued by 107 councils, compared to the 16 months to February 2016, when 130 PSPOs were issued by 79 councils.

Introduced in 2014, PSPOs allow local authorities to ban behaviour deemed to have a “detrimental effect” on “quality of life”, with fines and prosecutions for violations.

Separate freedom of information requests sent to every council in England and Wales show 470 fines were issued in 2015, rising to 1,906 in 2016, for violations such as playing bhangra music too loudly in a car and not having a dog on a lead.

The orders are particularly harsh on the homeless, Manifesto Club director Josie Appleton said, adding that those banning rough sleeping, bin-raking and begging were turning “social destitution into a sort of criminality”.

Ms Appleton said the result of a varied local use of PSPOs was “a patchwork of vague, absurd criminal law which people do not understand and cannot be enforced with any consistency”.

Simon Blackburn, chairman of the Local Government Association’s safer and stronger communities board, said PSPOs were an “effective way” of tackling “persistent anti-social behaviour problems raised by local residents and businesses”, adding: “These are serious issues that make the lives of victims a misery – in some cases with tragic consequences.”

PSPOs have to be reviewed every three years, he said.