Always on
This project successfully funded on 7th April 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
Help us take on 'busybody' powers in 2025
London, Greater London, United Kingdom
Aim: Help the Manifesto Club lead the fight against 'busybody powers' that are causing injustice and ruining people's lives.
Since 2014 the Manifesto Club has been the primary defence against ‘busybody’ powers that allow council or police officers to issue on-the-spot legal orders.
These orders - called Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs) and Community Protection Notices (CPNs) - are unprecedentedly arbitrary powers, without basic due process such verifying evidence or giving the recipient a right to reply.
This means:
- With a PSPO, a single councillor can decide to ban almost any activity in a public space, without even having to hold a consultation.
- With a CPN, a council or police officer can write out a legal order on your doorstep, including intrusive restrictions on your everyday life.
People have received CPNs banning them from looking at their neighbours, controlling the way in which they close their doors, or restricting the clothes they wear in their gardens.
There are over 2000 PSPOs banning activities such as sleeping in public, gathering in groups, or causing an annoyance to anybody else. These draconian laws are often enforced by private security officers on commission, leading to a record 19,000 penalties in 2023 for offences such as 'idling' and feeding the birds. Over 75% of PSPO penalties are now issued by private security companies who are paid per fine.
Year after year, we have produced the only national statistics on the use of PSPOs and CPNs. We are always in the press publicising the unjust use of these powers; and we are the main point of contact for people who want to oppose an order in their area, or who would like advice or for someone to publicise their case.
We need to raise £5000 to cover campaigning costs in 2025. This will mean that we can continue to publicise abuses of Community Protection Notices, and support those who have been unfairly issued with an order. We can produce briefings exposing the over-use of ASB powers. We can continue our demands for the Home Office to reform these powers once and for all. We can write to councils considering a draconian PSPO and ask them to remove or scale it back. And we can defend against a new threat - Respect Orders, which will carry the additional threat of arrest and imprisonment.