REMOVING rough sleepers from city council toilets has become a ‘significant problem’, according to an official report.

The authority's company, Oxford Direct Services (ODS), said many rough sleepers who are moved out of one toilet simply move into another across the city.

ODS adds the city centre has been ‘negatively affected by the prevalence of rough sleeping’.

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But its staff ‘largely have a good working relationship’ with rough sleepers, it said.

About 100 people are currently rough sleeping in Oxford.

On Thursday, the city council announced a review into whether five recent deaths of people who were homeless or had been known to sleep rough in the past was down to abuse or neglect.

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Last December, a man was barred from much of the city centre after he took drugs in the council's Gloucester Green toilets.

Gabriel Chamberlain, then 45 and of no fixed address, was given a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO). That means he is unable to leave or store items in public places throughout England and Wales and is restricted where he can go in Oxford.

Oxford Mail:

He was banned from entering the city centre except to go to Speedwell Street and Luther Street to access homelessness services at O’Hanlon House, Oxford Police Station and its courts.

The city council has put £1.8m aside to deal with homelessness over the next year but it has criticised the way grants have to be applied for from Government rather than money being allocated in one lot.

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When the council set its budget on February 13, executive board member Alex Hollingsworth said: “(Liberal Democrat) Councillor Altaf-Khan asks what the Labour government left for us in 2010.

"It left a level of rough sleeping in this city that was seven people. Now we have 100. That is a direct consequence of the policies that your party pursued and that have been made worse by the Tories (since 2015). You need to own up to that.”

The city council championed its toilets, which have won several Loo of the Year awards since 2015. But ODS said satisfaction with the toilets could be improved.

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From 'almost 400 responses', the facilities were given an average score of just 2.74 out of five.

ODS said it will 'intensify the programme of deep cleaning'. But Market Street's toilets are operating 'far beyond [its] capacity', the report said.