Human rights group Liberty has called on Newport City Council to scrap its plans to ‘criminalize’ begging and rough sleeping in the city center.
On Sunday, a consultation into the Welsh local authority’s proposed Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) closed.
The Order, if implemented, would make free leaflet distribution, rough sleeping and begging illegal in Newport city center.
The proposals were announced soon after the council revealed measures aimed at “improving the area.”
The proposals were announced soon after the council revealed measures aimed at “improving the area.”
In a consultation paper, the council said it expresses “a view to introducing a new and updated PSPO in time for the opening of the Friars Walk retail development in November 2015.”
However, Liberty has condemned these plans, claiming they would “criminalize the most vulnerable in the city.”
“These proposals make a mockery of Newport’s Chartist legacy. For the sake of a new shopping center, the Council is pouring its energies into criminalizing the most vulnerable in the city, and silencing means of dissent,” Liberty’s legal officer Rosie Brighthouse said in a statement.
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