A multi-agency approach is providing support to rough sleepers while ensuring everyone can feel safe in Nottingham city centre.
Police officers are working alongside organisations including Nottingham City Council and Framework to direct individuals toward support services.
It comes after the recent repeal of the historical Vagrancy Act (on 29 June), which means rough sleeping is no longer a criminal offence in the UK.
The law change has been widely welcomed, with police forces instead encouraged to utilise a multi-agency approach and targeted powers to address specific anti-social behaviour.
In Nottingham, neighbourhood teams are already working alongside local authorities and housing charities to offer vulnerable individuals direct referrals to local support services, such as emergency accommodation, mental health care, and substance misuse treatment.
However, where rough sleeping or begging involves issues like obstruction, harassment or aggressive behaviour, the police are authorised to intervene in order to keep people safe.
Officers may do this through:
- Move-on powers: Directing individuals to leave specific areas if their presence causes disruption or distress via a Section 35 dispersal order.
- Community Protection Notice Warnings (CPNWs): A formal written warning issued by the police or local councils to an individual, business, or organisation whose behaviour is persistently causing a nuisance or negatively impacting the local community. It is the mandatory first step before an official Community Protection Notice (CPN) is issued. Those who fail to comply with a CPN can be taken to court.
Such powers were utilised on Wednesday (15 July) when plain-clothed and uniformed police officers joined support workers from homeless service providers – including Nottingham City Council and Framework’s Street Outreach Team – in patrolling the streets and engaging with rough sleepers.
In one instance, a car park security guard asked a rough sleeper to move out of a stairwell and when he repeatedly refused the police were called.
Officers from the City Centre Neighbourhood Policing Team arrived and attempted to direct the rough sleeper toward support agencies, but he became highly aggressive and so had to be served with a Community Protection Notice Warning.
Other recent arrests have seen a homeless man receive a custodial sentence after he was caught smashing car windows in and around the city centre. Dyar Madhat was arrested in Old Market Square on 7 July by neighbourhood officers and is now serving an eight-week prison sentence.
Indeed, neighbourhood officers find themselves having to arrest rough sleepers almost every day in the city centre, usually for failing to attend court or having been recalled to prison for committing new offences related to retail crime, public order and drug crime.
Councillor Matt Shannon, Executive Member for Community Protection, Neighbourhoods and Equalities, said:
“The Council has been working closely with Police and other partners as part of a multi-agency approach to tacking issues in the city centre such as rough sleeping and aggressive begging through Operation Reclaim.
“Through the street outreach team, we ensure people who are rough sleeping are offered the support they need such as accommodation and health services to help them turn round their lives.
“However, we know that aggressive begging and anti-social behaviour is having a negative impact on people visiting the city centre and local businesses so it’s important we deal with this robustly through enforcement action.
“We want to make sure that everyone feels safe in Nottingham which is why we have invested in new Community Protection and Safety Partnership Officers to provide a visible presence, engage with communities and tackle anti-social behaviour and other issues that affect people’s quality of life.”
Sergeant Cai Kemish, of the City Centre Neighbourhood Policing Team, said the multi-agency approach to addressing rough sleeping forms part of the wider Operation Reclaim project, which was launched in May to tackle the biggest problems affecting Nottingham’s city centre.
He said:
“Operation Reclaim was launched because we understand people’s concerns relating to the city centre. We know ASB, aggressive begging and rough sleeping are among the issues people are most worried about – and we are working closely alongside a range of partner agencies to tackle these issues head on.
“Whilst the repeal of the Vagrancy Act means rough sleeping and begging is no longer a criminal offence, if it intersects with anti-social or criminal behaviour the police are clearly expected to and will intervene.
“This includes instances where rough sleepers are harassing members of the public, engaging in open drug use or involved in shoplifting.
“That’s why this multi-agency approach really works. It ensures rough sleepers are offered access to support agencies who can help them – but where they decline that support and instead engage in unlawful or antisocial behaviour, the police are there to step in.
“Over the past couple of months, we’ve issued 18 Community Protection Notice Warnings in the city centre and many of these have included rough sleepers. These warnings are effective because it gives the person a piece of paper that tells them this is your first warning, if you carry on with this behaviour you will be issued with a full Community Protection Notice (CPN). That’s happened in about six or seven of the 18 cases – and of those three have been arrested for breaching the CPN.”
Dave Newmarch, Director of Property & Housing Services at Framework, said:
“We recognise that rough sleeping is a real issue for the city centre and that despite multiple offers of support and treatment, rough sleepers do not always engage and enforcement activity may be required.
“This helps to protect the public and can also be beneficial for the people we support, encouraging them to make more positive choices in the future.
“People who are sleeping rough are typically in acute need of support, and our priority is to ensure they can access accommodation and tailored services as quickly as possible. Our Homelessness Pathway provides a single referral route into a minimum of 375 units of supported temporary accommodation, and is designed to reduce rough sleeping, end reliance on hotel beds and prevent evictions.
“The multi-agency approach of Operation Reclaim has enabled us to deliver joint outreach activity, targeted work with the most visible and complex individuals in our city and develop closer links with community safety teams. Through this initiative we are already seeing more rough sleepers access the support they need to move away from the streets and towards independence.
“We would encourage anyone concerned about someone sleeping rough to contact our Street Outreach Team on 0800 066 5356 so that they can offer support.”