Cash point begging ban approved by city council

The new rules on aggressive begging near cash machines will be introduced in the late autumn

A bid to ban begging near cash machines across a south Wales city has been approved.

Newport City Council agreed changes to public protection rules which will come into force in November.

Conservative members of the council had attempted to extend a blanket ban on intimidating begging anywhere in the city centre.

The move was rejected after the city's leader, Debbie Wilcox, described it as "cruel".

"If someone is begging for money it's not aggressive, it's a plea for compassion," Debbie Wilcox told a meeting of the council on Tuesday evening.

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Tory councillor David Fouweather said proposals to swap the centre-wide ban with one focusing on a 10-metre exclusion zone was "unlikely to work".

The public spaces orders will also tackle anti-social behaviour in Newport centre

The former mayor also called for the council "not to pander to the wishy-washy liberal elite" and support "frightened" citizens who stay away from the city centre.

But councillors were warned that a wide-ranging ban could open up a legal challenge on human rights grounds.

It followed a letter from the charity Liberty opposing an outright ban.

Another councillor, Labour's Debbie Harvey, remarked: "Nobody wakes up and thinks: 'I'm going to be an alcoholic, or let's be a drug addict'."

The new Public Spaces Protection Order will run until 2021, and includes other measures to tackle anti-social behaviour, drinking alcohol in public and keeping dogs on short leads.