I was shocked to read this article about spikes being put outside a block of flats in SE1 to deter rough sleepers. Shocked because people need help and places to live, not to be treated as vermin.
It seems very cruel, can't see no reason for it unless it's to stop people ( not neccessary homeless people) defacting/urinating there..My very old argument was the closure of Rowton House years ago where about 600 men were literally chucked out on the streets for the London park Hotel to be established. Mentally ill men and ex-soldiers from the second world war were dumped on the streets.
We are far too posh to have homeless people in se1 it seems :-(
Just googled it and was incorrect...not 600 men, nigh on 800 if I have read it right. They were evicted in 1970's and it opened as London Park hotel in 1972 then in 1990s housed a variety of immigrant/refugees, pulled down it said 2006...and where did all those poor men go? on the streets with only a lucky few to find hostels etc.:-(
It is not a new thing. Coutts bank on Fleet Street has a couple of large round windows both side of the main door and the deep window sills have those spikey things on them which I have always assumed was to stop people sitting there. Those spikes have been there many years and it has always niggled me.
This has been going on for years. Look beneath the platform of the Milleniuum Bridge on the North side, this used to be a flat surface. Also, all the benches along the river front have had dividing armrests added. You see these measures in any piece of null land resulting from buidling design unfortunately.
Noticed that this story is picked up in the Independent, Telegraph, Guardian and Huffington Post this morning.
Wonder who makes and sells these spikes, and who paid to have them put there?
Shame on them.
It is disgusting, but then I was a little uncomfortable at people patting themselves on the back about winning the argument about a bail hostel in their area.
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