DO OUR public spaces need protection orders? This debate is not about hospital trusts trying to develop Warneford Meadow or Oxford City Council wanting to build houses in the Green Belt or Oxford University encroaching on views of Port Meadow.

It’s not about the big players. This debate is about beggars and buskers and skateboarders and pigeon-feeders.

Are these people a nuisance of such magnitude that they reduce our ‘quality of life’ on the streets of central Oxford?

The city council thinks they do and wants to bring in Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPO) to control them with a warning, then an on-the-spot fixed penalty fine of £100 and finally a court case with a fine of up to £2,000.

The council has the power from central government to do this after consultation and a simple vote. The consultation ended on Wednesday.

The labour politicians are proposing to restrict sleeping in toilets, rough sleeping, public drinking, dogs off leads. ‘non-compliant’ busking and ‘persistent begging’ in Oxford city centre.

Will Wantage, Banbury, Witney, Bicester and Chipping Norton soon follow suit?

Dee Sinclair, the Oxford city councillor leading this debate told me: “We need to implement this is a way that is fair, reasonable and proportionate.”

Josie Appleton, an Oxford resident from The Manifesto Club which campaigns against hyper-regulation of everyday life is sceptical about the PSPO: “These orders will turn town and city centres into no-go zones for homeless people, buskers, old ladies feeding pigeons, or anyone else whom the council views as “messy”.

“It is astonishing that in the 21st century you could be punished for the crime of selling a lucky charm or loitering. This looks like a return to the meddling and moralism of 19th century bylaws.

“These powers are so broad that they allow councils to ban pretty much anything. The result is a patchwork of criminal law, where something is illegal in one town but not in the next, or in one street but not the next.”

I talked to one seller of The Big Issue in Cornmarket who didn’t want to be identified for fear of reprisal, and he told me “These orders are a great idea. I know some people who come here to beg when they are on benefits and have a home. At the end of the day they drive away in their cars. They take advantage; it’s not fair.”

These powers are very wide-ranging and could apply not only to beggars but to people creating chalk drawings on pavements unless they protect the tarmac by putting down a piece of canvas first.

What if Oxford follows the lead of Kettering Borough Council and restricts “people using a motor vehicle in an antisocial manner”? That could cover people using electric wheelchairs who regularly take pain killers and other drugs and drive too fast for the pavement, drive in the road and hold up traffic or just plain wobble.

And what about an even-handed application of these PSPOs? Would someone who drinks meths get caught while others drinking champers in tuxedos escape?

Oxford has its traditions that involve alcohol. One of them is coming up soon – May Morning when the choristers of Magdalen College wake up the sun with songs on top of the tower.

Oxford Mail:

  • Jodie Spencer on the shoulders of her boyfriend amid the throng revellers enjoying May Day celebrations in Oxford last year. Could such gatherings contravene the PSPOs asks Bill? And what of old ladies feeding pigeons and buskers?

Thousands of people from Oxfordshire and beyond celebrate and swarm onto the High Street. Many have been up all night. This is the end of a party when a lot of them can’t walk a straight line.

Are they going to walk straight into a £100 fixed penalty fine?

Prosecutions for begging have risen dramatically over the last year.

Figures from Thames Valley Police, and their area includes three relatively prosperous counties, showed an increase from 20 to 92 cases in 2013-2014.

This comes at a time when cuts to support services and benefits might be encouraging more and more people to resort to begging. That’s the view of Gary Messenger from the charity Homeless Link. “Our members report an increase in begging in some parts of England. This could explain the increase in enforcement.

“In terms of why begging has increased we believe there are a number of contributing factors but that reduction of restrictions to benefits and cuts to local support services is playing a part.”

In January the county council produced a report that recommended a 40 per cent cut to provision of homeless services.

At the time, Jon Fitzpatrick, director of The Porch charity for homeless people, said: “By cutting preventative support, the risk of people becoming homeless will increase. People with complex needs will be told they have to make their own way out of poverty. It’s a brutal and unrealistic expectation of people.”

Are these PSPOs covering Oxford city centre going to change the basic causes of these problems or will they simply move the problems on to another area?