The government has pledge that rough sleeping should be prevented whenever possible, it must be a rare occurrence, be brief and non-recurring and Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole Council has announced that it is fully committed to achieving these aims. It will be joining a number of other areas across England in leading the way in tackling homelessness across England.

The new government vision and strategy includes a set of measures by which local authorities can work with the Centre for Homelessness Impact (CHI) to track progress, shedding a light on successes in homelessness prevention and areas for improvement whilst improving how data is collected. This will align with the council’s Homelessness and Rough Sleeping strategy.

BCP Council’s rough sleeping count for 2021 was 29, compared with 25 in 2020 and 72 in 2019.

Portfolio lead member for Homelessness and Rough Sleeping, Councillor Hazel Allen, said: “We are delighted that Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole has been selected as an early adopter of the government’s new strategy in homelessness prevention. It is recognition of the hard work and commitment of the council and our partners in working to reduce homelessness across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole. This new approach will provide a clear means of tracking progress. The current annual street count is a useful measure, but only provides a snapshot in time and we need to be able to look at a wider set of data to understand experiences of rough sleeping. We must improve and adapt our services accordingly in order to prevent rough sleeping in the first case and ensure that if someone does end up on the streets it is very brief, and they do not have to sleep rough again.”

Alongside Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, the other areas involved in testing the new approach are London, Manchester, West Midlands and Newcastle.