Yahoo News Spikes to deter homeless people outside Wagamama spark protest graffiti
Wagamama has sparked fury after anti-tramp installation ‘homeless spikes’ were seen outside the window of one of their restaurants in London.
A graffiti artist called the popular restaurant chain “b*stards” and drew the word on a huge window at the restaurant in Southwark, in the centre of the capital.
The concrete structures beneath the window are called ‘hostile architecture’ as they prevent people from sitting or lying outside.
Stephen Robertson, chief executive of The Big Issue Foundation, said: “Hostile architecture is a well and long-established design approach intended and purposed towards moving a 'problem' from public view.
"It re-enforces social divisions, the 'haves and the have nots' as it were, and it endorses aggressive responses to the humanitarian crisis that is 'homelessness' today.
“It sits hand-in-hand with the pointless 'vagrancy act' and had no place in a solution focused democracy.”
A spokesperson from The Salvation Army added: “Rough sleeping deterrents can make already vulnerable people more marginalised and push them further away from organisations that can support them like The Salvation Army.
“We oppose anything that alienates and labels people as an issue to be solved rather than a person in need.”
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A spokesperson from The Restaurant Group PLC, which owns Wagamama, said Network Rail owns the lease to the land and that the deterrent has been there since the restaurant arrived in 2005.
