Councils have called for greater powers to deal with 'aggressive beggars' ahead of a possible influx of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants in 2014.

In a controversial open letter to Home Office minister Norman Baker, a group of influential urban councils – including Westminster and Birmingham – have warned that planned government reforms to anti-social behaviour laws will be ineffective unless localities are handed greater powers.

Home Office ministers plan to abolish anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos) next year, and replace them with injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance (Ipnas). But unlike Asbos, the new injunctions will not involve an automatic arrest trigger if breached.

Home Office minister Norman Baker has pledged to stress test injunctions to prevent nuisance and annoyance (Ipnas), which are set to replace Asbos next year.

Councils have said that the absence of an arrest trigger means they will have to go through an ‘overly burdensome’ bureaucratic process in order to tackle anti-social behaviour on their streets. The letter states that Ipnas ‘will bark but won’t bite’ – and demands that automatic powers of arrest should be built into the injunctions when anti-social behaviour is ‘intentional, deliberate and persistent’.

In response, Mr Baker has agreed that the Home Office will ‘stress test’ the Ipna proposals.

But the whole issue has now been linked to the impending arrival of a new wave of immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria in 2014.

Westminster City Council claims it has incurred a significant financial loss – around £500,000 annually – following the first wave of Romanian immigrants, hundreds of which the council claims are now sleeping rough on its streets. Many of the homeless immigrants have been accused of aggressive begging, with 21 arrested recently.

Five years ago, Westminster counted 21 rough sleepers on its streets, 18 of whom were Romanian. Now the council claims that it has 324 rough sleepers locally, 297 of whom are from Romania.

Cllr Nickie Aiken, community safety member at Westminster City Council, said that while the authority supported the free movement of labour across the EU, it did not support the ‘freedom to be antisocial’.

Shami Chakrabati, director of human rights group Liberty, attacked the councils’ letter as a ‘Dickensian pre-Christmas wish’.