Chelmsford City Council are pushing ahead with plans to fine beggars and rough sleepers; in effect, to criminalise poverty using a Public Spaces Protection Order.

It is my opinion that it is plainly wrong to further marginalise society's most vulnerable using the power of the state. The insanity of imposing a financial penalty on someone for carrying out the activity they need to do in order to obtain the bare essential to live is plain to see; fining someone because they did not have a place to sleep and had to use the streets is plainly nonsensical.

Please sign this petition to Chelmsford City Council to ask that they rethink this policy: a policy which aside from the human cost, will undoubtedly have a financial cost to the city in the chasing up of unpaid fines and processing those guilty of non-payment through the criminal justice system.