"PROFESSIONAL" beggars will be targeted by a taskforce created to rejuvenate St Helens town centre.

Last month, the Joint Agency Group (JAG) formed with the aim of tackling issues facing the town centre.

An update on initial objectives of the multi-agency group was given at the safer communities overview and scrutiny panel on Monday.

Jason Pickett , assistant director of community services, said an initial meeting of the JAG highlighted a “critical issue” regarding how the group responds to homelessness and professional beggars in the town centre.

Mr Pickett said: “We acknowledge there are vulnerable people who need support and need to get involved with services that can take them off the streets and address the issues that are causing them to be there in the first place.

“But we also accept there is an issue around some people who are not necessarily homeless but choose to beg.

“And we felt that the issues around this coincide with supporting the retail community, people who are invested in St Helens.”

Mr Pickett said retailers have raised the issue of professional begging, which is a criminal offence, with the council.

He also said the issue was “critical” in terms of lining up with the council’s town centre regeneration plans.

Mr Pickett said: “Yes, we are a caring council, we are a caring partnership, and we recognise you have to meet the needs of vulnerable people, but equally there’s a small minority who do beg when they have accommodation and when there’s alternative means by which they can obtain income.”

Thatto Heath councillor Richard McCauley stressed that the council was not seeking to punish the homeless.

Cllr McCauley said: “It’s not a target on homelessness, they will be given support, but there definitely is an issue with professional begging.

“I see people coming out of flats with sleeping bag to sit all day in, professional begging.

“I know it is an issue for the retailers and people in the town centre in the daytime and in the night-time economy, so I think it is right that we start to tackle that.”

Mr Pickett said other issues the JAG will look to focus on is discarded drug paraphernalia, youth disorder, arson and problems relating to the night-time economy.