Napping in public, feeding the birds and climbing trees may sound like perfectly normal activities. In fact, most people have probably done all of these things. And yet, these are just some of the activities people have been fined for as part of an ever more punitive government clampdown on “antisocial behaviour”.
According to new research, these types of fines – issued under public spaces protection orders (PSPOs) legislation – increased to 13,433 in 2022, up from 10,412 in 2019. It’s not just the record number, but the absurd nature of the fines that has raised alarm. PSPOs can be issued if a council official believes activities carried out in a public place have had a “detrimental effect” on quality of life. This is a vague threshold that has given local councils a blank cheque to ban normal, or at most slightly annoying, behaviour in a specified area.
