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Westminster to drive out pigeons
Ruth Bloomfield29.05.09
Farmers' markets and antique stalls could be established around Westminster Cathedral as part of a £2.5million plan to rejuvenate the "tired and unattractive" space.
Westminster has hired architects to "design out" homeless people and pigeons amid fears that the piazza in front of the cathedral and nearby Wilcox Place has become a no-go area for residents and commuters.
A report on the plan complains about the large numbers of rough sleepers attracted to the area by the proximity of Victoria Coach Station and soup kitchen, The Passage.
It states: "Since the UK opened its borders to EU migrant workers, there has been an influx of transient workersa large proportion of these arrive at Victoria Coach Station. Some of these new arrivals have no money and no accommodation."
The council said it had "worked hard" to persuade the soup kitchen to leave the area and claimed "local stakeholders" believed the charity was attracting anti-social behaviour and crime.
The brief for the new design will include attempts to make the piazza less attractive to rough sleepers. Over the next year the council will invest £185,000 on a design for both spaces. Over the next five years it will spend another £2.4million on reinventing the area, and may set up an antiques market or farmers' market.
Alison Gelder, chief executive of Housing Justice, which runs the London Soup Run Forum, said she was deeply concerned about Westminster's intentions.
She admitted the piazza is popular among rough sleepers because of its abundance of nooks next to warm air vents, but added: "We are concerned Westminster might use aggressive tactics. One of the things we are worried about is that in the City they have been using street cleaning teams to wet places where rough sleepers lie - and in some cases their possessions and even the people themselves.
"Other councils wake people up and engage them in conversation to deter them. Our preference would be working to make sure they have somewhere to sleep. They are human beings. And if you do not find them somewhere to stay they will only move elsewhere."
Rosemary Westbrook, Westminster's director of housing, said: "Westminster works very hard to get rough sleepers' lives back on track, and with our network of hostels and centres, in the last year we helped more than 750 off the street.
"We have no plans to target rough sleepers in an aggressive way. Any work we undertake to clean the streets where they may have been congregating is done sensitively."
