FIFTY-THOUSAND names were put on an online petition calling for new banning orders affecting homeless people to be scrapped in just two days.

The Oxford University-based student group On Your Doorstep has been raising awareness about issues surrounding homelessness since its launch last year.

But its chairman Freya Turner, chairman of the group, said response to the new petition “shot up overnight” and was unexpected.

The change.org petition, entitled 'Don’t make life harder for Oxford’s rough sleepers', responds to the city council’s proposal to use Public Spaces Protection Orders to ban a list of “antisocial activities”, including rough sleeping.

The measures were introduced as part of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 and aim to tackle persistent types of antisocial behaviour in towns and cities. One of the types of behaviour listed is rough sleeping.

The PSPO would affect the city centre, but the petition wants rough sleeping to be cut from the list of antisocial behaviours.

Miss Turner, 20, said: “It got a good response in the first few days but it’s shot up overnight from 1,500. I hadn’t expected it to go to this level.

“We feel this proposal would only gloss over issues of the housing crisis in the city, and increase already high levels of stigma. It risks treating homeless people as a threat or an inconvenience.”

She added that she had reservations about campaigns like the nationwide Kindness Can Kill, which warns people against giving money to people who may have drug or alcohol dependencies: “It categorises homeless people as a homogeneous group that are automatically going to spend money on drugs. You can’t afford to generalise in this way.”

This is the first major campaign run by On Your Doorstep.

Miss Turner added she hoped the group will also change attitudes about students: “People very often think students just flit in and out of Oxford and are only interested in partying, and don’t care about the city that they live in.”

Oxford Homeless Pathways chief executive Lesley Dewhurst said: “I don’t know how they would enforce it – there’s already a reasonably assertive attitude in terms of waking people up and showing them places to go.”

City council chief executive Peter Sloman said: “The City Council spends over £1 million on support for homelessness.

"It is wrong to suggest the proposed PSPO would change any of that support. It is also untrue that the proposed order would ‘criminalise’ rough sleeping.

“The council works closely with a multi-agency team and St Mungo’s to deal with rough sleepers, many of whom have complex needs.

“A small number of people continue to beg and sleep on the city’s streets despite receiving support and having been allocated accommodation. It is only that behaviour that would be covered by the proposed PSPO."

The petition is at change.org/p/oxford-city-council-don-t-make-life-harder-for-oxford-s-rough-sleepers