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NBBC continues on its mission to reduce homelessness and help those who are unfortunate enough to find themselves living on the street, especially during these cold winter months. The Council has published a protocol outlining its approach to getting rough sleepers off the streets during severe weather conditions - this can be found on its website.

Working with the local outreach agencies, such as P3 and Doorway, the Council helps single people and family groups into emergency accommodation when they find themselves homeless. Our preventative work extends across the Borough, with our housing solutions service working to support those in danger of becoming homeless and other teams helping people to develop skills and resilience when they are at risk of losing their existing accommodation.

Work within the town centres has been stepped up alongside efforts to tackle issues around begging. Council officers are working with police colleagues to tackle this issue and is considering a range of solutions. 

Cllr Barry Longden said:

“We work with various groups, including the P3 and Doorway, to support homeless people as best we can. These are some of the most vulnerable people in our society and it is important that we do everything possible to help them. We have recently created extra emergency accommodation within the Borough and we’re looking to create even more units still to address a shortfall.

“We’ve sharpened our focus on the town centres where we’ve seen an increase in homelessness and also in begging, which is a separate issue. Whatever their circumstances, the people we see on the street in the cold are likely to be struggling in some way and we want to help them, even where it is difficult to engage with individuals, or where they initially reject our help.  

“We continue to work with our homelessness outreach partners and the police to tackle these issues and find compassionate solutions that work.”