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Why are the council not tackling the growing camp in central London?

201 replies

Eesha · 08/08/2026 11:29

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16036293/Tents-endless-thefts-local-shopkeepers-bathing-street-Romanian-Bulgarian-beggar-encampment-blighting-heart-London.html

I know its the Daily Fail but ive been past this area and its become really shocking. Its a huge camp now. Why aren't the council doing anything?

The Romanian and Bulgarian beggar encampment blighting heart of London

Row upon row of tents, hurling dishwater onto the road, bathing on the central reservation, harassing passersby, and stealing booze and solvents from the local newsagent.

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16036293/Tents-endless-thefts-local-shopkeepers-bathing-street-Romanian-Bulgarian-beggar-encampment-blighting-heart-London.html

OP posts:
Terrribletwos · 08/08/2026 16:26

Unforgettablefire · 08/08/2026 16:22

Me and dp landed in Paris at night, and walked down a dark but busy road thinking it was the road to our hotel.
We came across these rows of tents and I was petrified. Even more so when we realised the road joined a motorway and we had to turn and walk past them all again with all our stuff.
There wasn’t anyone else around I was convinced we’d be murdered.

Why were you convinced you would be murdered?

tsmainsqueeze · 08/08/2026 16:27

Noorandapples · 08/08/2026 11:55

I don't have much sympathy I'm afraid, I wouldn't choose to go to another country to beg and camp out, they could easily do the exact same thing in their own countries. These are not the nurses and teachers of the windrush generation, they're a gang.

I agree, the pc brigade will slate these opinions but we all know a large proportion of these people wouldn't think twice about intimidating and stealing .
They aren't particularly welcome in the Eastern European countries they came from.
I will save my sympathy and concerns for the British born homeless which is a disgrace.

TonTonMacoute · 08/08/2026 16:43

Digerydont · 08/08/2026 13:24

Surely, since Brexit, they are not entitled to be there. Why doesn't the government simply charter some planes and return them to Bulgaria/ Romania?

This.

I think people are now just fed up of foreigners behaving badly. We have plenty of foreigners who behave well, and plenty of British people who behave badly. I'm damned if I understand why we have to put up with this lot. It shouldn't be so bloody hard to get them to sod off back to where they came from and behave badly there.

Boomer55 · 08/08/2026 16:50

Eesha · 08/08/2026 11:29

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-16036293/Tents-endless-thefts-local-shopkeepers-bathing-street-Romanian-Bulgarian-beggar-encampment-blighting-heart-London.html

I know its the Daily Fail but ive been past this area and its become really shocking. Its a huge camp now. Why aren't the council doing anything?

It's been there for ages. Everyone ignores it.

EmeraldRoulette · 08/08/2026 16:54

parallhel · 08/08/2026 16:19

Yes they were moved on. TfL owned the land (I just looked it up) and cleared it out. The campers moved to Oxford Street apparently. I'm only going on what came up in my search on Google though.

It's the same with HMO's and asylum accommodation. Rarely if ever in affluent suburbs or areas, but ubiquitous elsewhere. Money talks.

But the Park Lane area had that other one for years! Fitzrovia isn’t short of a few bob either

Mind you, I am now wondering if the reason they ultimately left Park Lane was something to do with money talking…..But in that case, it took people with money nearly a couple of decades to get them out?

my apologies - at various points, I have not been clear whether I’m talking about the Park Lane one or the Euston one! And although the article has linked the Euston one to what happened at Endell Street, they are so many little pockets of homelessness, I’m getting quite confused.

KnickerlessParsons · 08/08/2026 16:55

Eesha · 08/08/2026 11:50

I genuinely think it isn't safe there, they are camping on the central reservation area. Its not families, its just people who have set up home there. The council needs to move them along. I mean where are they even using for washing

Or toileting 🤢

thestraycathouse · 08/08/2026 17:01

Eesha · 08/08/2026 11:50

I genuinely think it isn't safe there, they are camping on the central reservation area. Its not families, its just people who have set up home there. The council needs to move them along. I mean where are they even using for washing

I walked past them last Monday I think it was and there was a loads of kids there maybe 7-10 which I hadn’t seen before. Also what sounded like a massive argument going on. I go past them to get home from work every time I’m in the office.

they have been around that area a long time - pre Covid there used to be large groups hanging out in Warren Street in the mornings just as you came out the side entrance of the tube, I also remember seeing all the tents round the UCL? Buildings on the crossroads itself.

IDontHateRainbows · 08/08/2026 17:01

TonTonMacoute · 08/08/2026 16:43

This.

I think people are now just fed up of foreigners behaving badly. We have plenty of foreigners who behave well, and plenty of British people who behave badly. I'm damned if I understand why we have to put up with this lot. It shouldn't be so bloody hard to get them to sod off back to where they came from and behave badly there.

In the olden days they had the army/ navy to stop invaders to our country.

It's not like it's a new concept is it, most countries have some military/ defense strategy to prevent from being invaded we have forgotten it seems.

parallhel · 08/08/2026 17:01

EmeraldRoulette · 08/08/2026 16:54

But the Park Lane area had that other one for years! Fitzrovia isn’t short of a few bob either

Mind you, I am now wondering if the reason they ultimately left Park Lane was something to do with money talking…..But in that case, it took people with money nearly a couple of decades to get them out?

my apologies - at various points, I have not been clear whether I’m talking about the Park Lane one or the Euston one! And although the article has linked the Euston one to what happened at Endell Street, they are so many little pockets of homelessness, I’m getting quite confused.

Edited

Could be because of the ownership of the land they were camping on and the legalities of it. But it was cleared out anyhow.

I'd hazard a guess that there won't be any encampments on the streets of Hampstead, Knightsbridge, Kensington, or whatever other lofty area of London you could think of.

KentnotClarke · 08/08/2026 17:06

EmeraldRoulette · 08/08/2026 14:22

You know I'm thinking about this and you're right

Because it wasn't a problem when I was hanging around Hanover grand and the legendary Met Bar! Oh my god... that set me off down memory lane...a well
spent youth!

anyway, I have given up and asked AI

It's saying 2012 - I'm assuming that must be post Olympics. There's books about the amount of international corruption that arrives with every hosting of the Olympics so that actually makes sense.

I remember those bars /clubs also and icini /iceni sp!!

I'm all for helping the homeless and with a family member who has actually slept rough for two years due to mental health issues they couldn't get help for I do understand some of the aspects very well indeed.
Id rather any penny spent on people from Romania and Bulgaria to be spent on helping the UK citizens first that's all. There are no resources and no money.

EmeraldRoulette · 08/08/2026 17:10

@parallhel I was a big fan of Hampstead when I lived in London so I went there a lot - I never saw anything like that

But I was puzzled by your comment about money because the biggest encampment was at Park Lane so it just seemed like a really odd remark to make

Maybe Park Lane was targeted because of its proximity to Oxford Street.

But my point is, there are a lot of problems that money won’t solve. I don’t think any area is immune to this happening for sure.

I just looked it up and it does look as if Euston Road and Warren Street are actually considered to be two separate groups. Interesting.

@KentnotClarke hello! Nice to meet someone who remembers those days and those things and places!

Terrribletwos · 08/08/2026 17:10

Why is it even allowed? If they're from an Eu country, surely they're not just allowed to camp anywhere? I don't understand why they're not actually decamped and forced to move on.

GingerBeverage · 08/08/2026 17:16

The smell from piles of human poo near the bridge at Waterloo Station was potent recently. There's also a new set of people sleeping outside Farringdon Station.

JanesClinic · 08/08/2026 17:17

They should be sent back to the EU.

zurigo · 08/08/2026 17:21

EmeraldRoulette · 08/08/2026 17:10

@parallhel I was a big fan of Hampstead when I lived in London so I went there a lot - I never saw anything like that

But I was puzzled by your comment about money because the biggest encampment was at Park Lane so it just seemed like a really odd remark to make

Maybe Park Lane was targeted because of its proximity to Oxford Street.

But my point is, there are a lot of problems that money won’t solve. I don’t think any area is immune to this happening for sure.

I just looked it up and it does look as if Euston Road and Warren Street are actually considered to be two separate groups. Interesting.

@KentnotClarke hello! Nice to meet someone who remembers those days and those things and places!

Edited

I reckon it's Oxford Street that's the lure. Lots of tourists all wandering along oblivious, easy prey for pickpockets. And let's face it, that's what they're here to do - steal. The UK has a lot more worth nicking than Romania and Bulgaria.

TheFrendo · 08/08/2026 17:27

They should just be deported.

Terrribletwos · 08/08/2026 17:33

zurigo · 08/08/2026 17:21

I reckon it's Oxford Street that's the lure. Lots of tourists all wandering along oblivious, easy prey for pickpockets. And let's face it, that's what they're here to do - steal. The UK has a lot more worth nicking than Romania and Bulgaria.

Yes, I remember this from years ago in the 90s. Pickpockets were rife amongst from the Roma then and Bulgarian Roma now. Nobody has done anything about it in the last 30 years and so it's just getting worse. Nobody wants to be the bad guy., it seems.

LoveItaly · 08/08/2026 17:43

Digerydont · 08/08/2026 14:31

Nigel and Rupert will sort it

Not that I will be voting for either of their parties, but in any case I doubt they’d do anything about it if they won a general election. I am not convinced that politicians are really in control, and the people that are clearly don’t give a damn.

OneAmberFinch · 08/08/2026 17:57

"It's fine to have encampments of homeless people with no sanitation lining the streets of London, some people just prefer the open air. You just don't want to have to see homeless people" etc etc

They obviously should be moved on, yes to prison for the night if that's the only option, and settled status/ILR revoked if applicable. There are other ways of dealing with criminal records, you could have homelessness records hidden or something.

And yes, I think the (dis)amenity value of having unsightly and stinking camps on high streets for literally everyone else is something that should be part of the calculation on what to do, shoot me.

MauriceTheMussel · 08/08/2026 18:06

placemats · 08/08/2026 12:19

I walked along the Euston Road two weeks ago and didn't see encampments.

Do you think the DM’s photos are AI?! 😂

Would you like me to take a picture tomorrow and post it here?

MauriceTheMussel · 08/08/2026 18:07

placemats · 08/08/2026 13:02

By the over and underpass near Fitzrovia? Only got as far as Bloomsbury. That's quite a dangerous place to put up an encampment. How many tents did you count?

You can quite literally see the underpass in the photos the DM has published. Again, happy to take a real life iPhone picture for you

zurigo · 08/08/2026 18:09

LoveItaly · 08/08/2026 17:43

Not that I will be voting for either of their parties, but in any case I doubt they’d do anything about it if they won a general election. I am not convinced that politicians are really in control, and the people that are clearly don’t give a damn.

They're only in control up to a point. They can make new laws, if they can get them through parliament, but otherwise they're stuck with the current laws and/or the ECHR, under whose jurisdiction we are still, despite leaving the EU in 2020. And boy do these foreign criminals take advantage of that, together with Legal Aid, that most Britons can only dream of, and barristers to argue that the child they fathered with some random woman, who they neither see nor provide for gives them 'a right to family life'.

Either that, or bleeding heart lefties block them from being deported, if the British authorities ever get to that stage. Remember the Jamaican rapist who was in the process of being loaded onto a plane when do-gooding activists prevented it from leaving and he then went out and raped another woman? Yep, that's good old Britain for you! We never fail to be a soft touch and to give advantages and benefits to people who have absolutely no right to them, while penalising the law abiding citizens who work hard and pay their taxes.

MidnightPatrol · 08/08/2026 18:09

It’s amazing they can’t just deport them all really isn’t it.

They aren’t from the UK, they are here to beg and steal.

I think we are bizarrely tolerant of the situation. It has been going on for years, this is just the current spot they have chosen.

MauriceTheMussel · 08/08/2026 18:10

To a PP who said they think the Euston one is post lockdown, if you go on Google StreetView, at Aug 2022, there are no tents but one group of people with cardboard box “mattresses” at the site (and a load of rubbish). You can’t see a more recent date, which is really really odd. It’s a major road and they haven’t sent cameras down it in 4 years?

(I know it’s there)

MidnightPatrol · 08/08/2026 18:12

zurigo · 08/08/2026 17:21

I reckon it's Oxford Street that's the lure. Lots of tourists all wandering along oblivious, easy prey for pickpockets. And let's face it, that's what they're here to do - steal. The UK has a lot more worth nicking than Romania and Bulgaria.

Yes they are very ten metres along Oxford street, shoes off and lying in a ‘downward dog’ position begging.

All the same signs - clearly organised by the same gang. I was assaulted by one of them once and the police said they’re all part of the same gang and come in and out of the country frequently to avoid the law.

It’s very tiresome.

They are a huge issue in the bars and restaurants, stealing bags. There is a big standing outside pubs drinking culture in central London and they’re just wandering around nicking stuff, I’ve had countless stand offs where they’ve tried to do this. It’s very boring after you’ve spent ten years fending them off.

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