‘These beggars are repeat offenders’

• THE multi-tented encampment of rough sleepers, see above, is back in Park Lane.

The same professional beggars who were moved on by the police – and Transport for London – in 2019 have returned and are well entrenched.

Residents and business owners in the Marble Arch and Oxford Street radius will recognise several of the “self-styled homeless” who, year in, year out, squat at bus stops and outside empty shops with their cardboard begging signs.

These are repeat offenders who refuse the city council’s offers of accommodation while setting up a makeshift campsite, washing their clothes in the public fountains and defecating in the bushes.

TfL denies that the camp is on their land while trying to shift responsibility for the camp’s removal on to the local council.

The question that neither the local authority nor TfL is answering is, where will these incorrigible beggars set up camp next?

The £90million Oxford Street redevelopment plan is going ahead and what will prevent them from continuing to masquerade as “homeless and hungry” on our newly-minted streets?

JIM HILL, W2