Furthermore to my previous comments, I know that local charities are suffering because of chuggers and surely it is important to have a level playing field here so that local charities are not disadvantaged? Some support from the government towards local charities would be good also.

Sorry James for incorrectly stating the your local council has arranged a SMA with the PFRA and I congratulate you for standing your ground. I wish other councils had the same backbone. Many people avoid area’s where chuggers operate and therefore have a bad impact on local economies, so why can’t local councils have full control over their local ecomony particularly under the new governenments proposal of a ‘big society’. Shouldn’t it be a priority to protect the local electorate including vulnerable people from such agressive hard selling in the street? I just can’t believe that local authorites think its ok for such pressure selling and obtaining peoples bank details is acceptable in this day and age.

I find it shocking that councils feel obliged to do a deal with a trade association with vested interests and its clear that there is a definate conlict of interests here. i will be questioning this towards our local MP but expect to get the usual speal of it being important to support charity, but to me thats not the point considering the above. If it would be just about charity, then fair enough but charity has changed and now there are corporate ‘for profit’ organisations involved so it should be considered differently and a conflict of interests is definately a factor now.

I think councils felt they had very little option but to agree a SMA with the PFRA but what they should be doing is lobbying for the licence of chugging and to get the 2006 Charities Act section regarding street collections activated. I know some councils are doing this but all councils should be fighting for this. I believe that most people want to see the end of approach in the street with is basically a form of aggressive begging and if there is a domacracy I hope this happens.

Wandsworth does not have a site management agreement (SMA) in place. We have an uneasy moratorium with them in one venue (Tooting Broadway) but no SMAs anywhere else – part of the reason is that we believe we have the right to say that no part of Wandsworth is suitable for chugging, the PFRA believe that they have a right to chug and, therefore, our positions are incompatible.

I cannot speak with any authority for other councils. For some I think there was a misunderstanding that led them to an SMA. My opinion is that the PFRA were pushing SMAs as inevitable and implying that councils would have a duty to licence chugging – I’m not aware of anyone else who has taken our view that we will have a duty to licence chugging, but not necessarily a duty to issue any licences. Of course, this is all irrelevant because the relevant regulations were never issued by this or the last government.

In some other cases I know that the chugging problem had become so bad in an area they felt they had to enter an SMA to limit the problem. I think it’s fair to say that of those I have spoken to the reaction is mixed – some say the SMA is respected, others report that they have to actively manage it.

Lets face it, the PFRA are a trade association with ‘regulator’ clothes on and will only look after their members, namely everyone involved in chugging.

My question is:

Why are councils across the country, including Wandsworth, doing a deal (SMA) with an unelected body (PFRA) which is basically a trade association whose main purpose is to influence public policy? Is this not undemocratic?

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/public-execution-of-charity-muggers-to-raise-all-the-money-that-will-ever-be-needed-201008313047/