Some may have seen in the news this week that on Tuesday 11 February 2025, His Honour Judge Bird ruled that the homeless camp in St Peter’s Square can be evicted. GMLC represented one of the Defendants in the case. This particular claim may have been decided, but the crisis in homelessness services and provision that led here continues.
The image above shows St Peter’s Square on 8/02/25. Many of those sleeping in the tents in the image are waiting to be assessed by Manchester City Council’s homeless team, and have nowhere else to sleep while they wait.
Before Christmas, the Council issued a claim in court seeking permission to evict those sleeping in the camp. After being put in touch with the camp’s residents by Greater Manchester Tenants Union campaigners, GMLC met with people sleeping in the Square and raised several defences to this claim on behalf of one of the Defendants.
A legal duty to offer emergency accommodation arises as soon as the Council has reason to believe a person may be “homeless, eligible and in priority need”. Essentially, any rough sleeper who has recourse to public funds in the UK who is vulnerable or unwell enough to be considered ‘in priority need’ should generally be offered some form of interim accommodation. If the Council isn’t sure whether the person is vulnerable but they are reporting health problems or illness, it should conduct an assessment to make further enquiries, and house them at least until it determines whether they are owed a full homeless duty.
From the people we have spoken to who have been in St Peter’s Square for a while, these processes – designed to prevent rough sleeping – did not appear to be happening. They told us they had not received any other offers of accommodation from any other support services either.
At the initial possession hearing on 13 January 2025, a judge decided that the Council had not sufficiently demonstrated that they had complied with the rules of service for all the Defendants. The rules of service work on the principle that the people who are going to be affected by a claim in court should be given the claim’s paperwork so they can go and get legal advice or defend the case themselves. The Council was ordered to re-serve documents relating to the claim and to display certain documents clearly in five languages near the encampment. The image above shows the result of this: documents about the claim for eviction being displayed on the barriers that the Council had previously set up to prevent homeless people sleeping under shelter in the arches of Central Library.
The eviction was delayed, but another hearing was listed on 11 February 2025.
Between the hearings of 13 January and 11 February, GMLC made representations on behalf of 18 of the homeless people sleeping in St Peter’s Square to the Council. This led to 15 offers of accommodation, including for the Defendant GMLC represented.
Though some of the residents had been accommodated between the two hearings, many others had not. Therefore, at the next hearing, GMLC continued to argue that the Council had not complied with its statutory duties under homelessness law and should not be able to seek possession until they had.
The Council submitted that they had, since the hearing of 13 January 2025, made progress with their statutory duties under homelessness law to those staying in St Peter’s Square. That was sufficient to persuade HHJ Bird to grant possession at the hearing of 11 February 2025. This means that the Council can now apply to the court for bailiffs to attend.
In theory, many (if not all) of those sleeping in the camp have a right to homelessness assistance and should not need to sleep rough. Whether or not that right is conferred in practice is often where GMLC and other legal and advice services have to step in.
GMLC commends the work undertaken by community organisations in Manchester to support people who have been given no option but to sleep rough, but this should always be in addition to statutory services.
GMLC will continue to support homeless people in Greater Manchester and will pursue cases on behalf of those without accommodation where there is, or should be, a statutory homeless duty owed to them.
