“The nuisance is exacerbated by the repetition and poor quality of some of the performances”: Buskers banned from London’s Leicester Square as performances likened to “psychological torture”

One of London's biggest tourist hotspots is set to become a lot quieter after Westminster Council announced that buskers have been banned from playing in Leicester Square.

The ban will come into force on April 17 after a judge ruled that buskers were inflicting “psychological torture” on nearby office workers. The council has said it therefore had “no choice” but to implement the changes, and there are fears the performers could have licenses revoked in other areas as a knock-on effect.