Green Party candidate for Mayor of Croydon, Peter Underwood, explains why we are opposed to the extension of the Mayor’s Public Space Protection Order.
Here we go again! Croydon Council is planning to introduce yet another Public Space Protection Order (PSPO).
Despite having failed twice already, under Labour and the Conservatives, Jason Perry is convinced that another PSPO will solve everything that he thinks is wrong in the town centre.
So, what is a PSPO?
Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs) came into existence under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 and give Councils the power to turn normal behaviour into a crime. A PSPO lasts for three years.
As I pointed out when the Labour Council first came up with a PSPO for Croydon, this was just allowing petty local politicians to impose their prejudices on the rest of us.
I also spoke to Dr Bradley Garrett, an ethnographic geographer writing for the Guardian, who was highlighting PSPOs being used as part of a wider attack on our freedoms and the ongoing private control of our public spaces.
PSPOs not only allow the police to use these new powers, the powers can be passed on to others – allowing rich businesses and landowners to have their own private police forces.
Despite all of these sensible objections, the Labour Council introduced a PSPO in 2017. Did it make our town centre a better place? No, and that’s why when it came to an end in 2020 it wasn’t renewed.
But then along came Jason Perry with his own set of prejudices and petty peccadillos and he decided to impose his own PSPO.
Ria Patel, one of the Green Party Councillors for the town centre, made clear at the time that the PSPO was not just a failure it was also actively harmful. The PSPO just moved people and activities from the town centre into surrounding areas and “In a town where public confidence in the police is already low, and a society where black people and young people are disproportionately affected by police violence, all that introducing the PSPO will do is make matters worse and further reduce public confidence in the police.”
Again, despite these sensible objections, the Conservatives pushed on and introduced a PSPO in 2022.
So has the PSPO been a success? Obviously not.
Perry himself doesn’t believe that anti-social behaviour has reduced. In a toddler tantrum at his own failure, he has even started removing benches because if people won’t use then nicely then they can’t use them at all. Never mind all those people who might need a sit down when out doing their shopping who have also now been excluded from the town centre.
Despite Perry’s ongoing persecution of homeless people and anyone who tries to help them, the number of homeless people in Croydon is still going up. Perry just doesn’t want to see the evidence of his Party’s failures sleeping in any sheltered spots in the town centre.
Allowing the use of private enforcement forces has even led to thuggish harassment of families just trying to do their shopping. Yet another way that Perry is making Croydon less welcoming.
The fundamental problem with PSPOs is that they are based on the cruel, and completely false, idea that you can stop something happening just by increasing the punishment. Longer prison sentences do not reduce crime and issuing fines does not stop people drinking in the street or help anyone find somewhere to live.
As the South Norwood Community Kitchen have said “criminalising the symptoms of a broken society does not solve its problems” .
In politics we’re used the same old parties rolling out the same old ideas and failing in the same old ways. But there comes a time when we all have to say enough is enough. We need real action to tackle the underlying problems in our society, not just another false promise.
A new PSPO will not tackle any of the problems in Croydon town centre and it will actually make people’s lives worse. Please reply to the consultation and tell Croydon Council that you definitely disagree with having yet another PSPO.
We don’t need more pompous and petty politicians dishing out punishments to people they don’t like. If we want Croydon to improve, then we need to work together to develop real solutions to make all of our lives better.