Update on Chuggers -A balance to be sought

Story by Tim Clarke Worcester Standard 21st June 2012 CHARITY muggers’ who roam Worcester’s High Street are facing a major clampdown after angry councillors described them as “parasites” and a “plague on the city’s streets”. Under a new agreement face-to-face charity fund-raisers - or chuggers as they are often called - could be banned from the city centre for up to six days a week. The move comes after we previously reported in March Councillor Jabba Riaz’s concerns that some people were being put off going into the city centre because of persistent street fund-raisers. The city council’s licensing committee has given officers the green light to thrash out a deal with the Public Fundraising Regulatory Association (PFRA), which regulates its member charities, to restrict the number of days chuggers can operate in Worcester to no more than one or two a week. Although the agreement would only be voluntary the council has warned it would consider passing a bylaw, like Birmingham City Council, to ban them. Speaking at Tuesday’s (June 19) licensing committee meeting, Coun Richard Udall said a voluntary agreement did not go far enough and called on the Government to change the law. “These people who engage in these activities are parasites taking bank details off people who they embarrass into doing it,” he said. Coun Alan Amos said people had had enough of chuggers but he was concerned the council would not be able to enforce a voluntary agreement. Coun Simon Cronin added: “Voluntary agreements are very difficult to pin down. These people are a plague on the streets, they are an absolute nuisance.” But Coun Jo Hodges said she had never found chuggers to be unpleasant and added: “These are people just doing their job and I don’t think they see themselves as a pest. If I say ‘no thank you’ they just walk away.” Committee members eventually agreed to pursue a voluntary agreement but if it proves ineffective the council will then consider other options, including a bylaw. The committee will also write to Worcester MP Robin Walker urging him to put pressure on the Government to consider tougher national regulations on chuggers. Ian MacQuillan, from the PFRA, said it had already negotiated agreements with 45 other councils including Cheltenham and Gloucester with another 19 in the pipeline. “We have got a very successful record in regulation of street fund-raising with councils and I would be astounded if we couldn’t come to an agreement with Worcester,” he said. “We try to balance the duty of charities to be out there fund-raising and asking for support against the rights of the public not to be put under undue pressure to give.” My comments: What this voluntary agreement will enable us to do is, give Worcester Based Charities a better profile And more prominence. Small local charities do not have the budgets of larger organisations and cannot compete with them. So there only opportunity is by collecting on the high st, but if they are competing with Chuggers then they risk being labelled under the same brush. I hope a sensible agreement is reached.