A BUSINESS and a college responsible for boarding up the entrances to two city centre shops have been branded shameful for denying homeless people shelter.

The entrances of two vacant shops – formerly Next and Lush – in Cornmarket Street were boarded off recently.

It comes as Oxford City Council figures showed just over a quarter of rough sleepers surveyed in the city in March were in accommodation by October.

Neo, a busker who used the former Next's entrance to sleep in on some nights over the past year, said: “I just don’t understand it, I’m angry.

"It just feels that they doesn’t realise that we’re all part of a society.

"We all have to live with each other.”

The 46-year-old, who said he sleeps rough as a life choice, said: “I understand people’s concerns and there’s an issue of tourists and visitors or people lying in doorways but sometimes people need to see it.

"You cannot brush homelessness under the carpet.”

Jesus College – Next's former landlord – and Lush are responsible for the shops. They were told by Oxford City Council that drugs had been taken in the shops' doorways and that used needles had been stuffed under their doors.

There was no suggestion that this was related to Neo's presence.

Lush moved out to a new unit in the Westgate Centre in October but remains responsible for the Cornmarket Street shop's lease until January.

It said it will take the board down after it had conceded it had made 'an error'.

Jesus College's unit has also been vacant since October but it said the board will stay.

David Thomas, the city council’s Green Party leader, said: “This is cruel, pure and simple.

"No one would argue that sleeping in a doorway is ideal but these men and women at the moment have no alternative.

"Those responsible for these premises should be ashamed of themselves."

Statistics released exclusively to the Oxford Mail show that only 22 of 80 rough sleepers surveyed in the city in March were in accommodation by October.

They also showed two of the rough sleepers the city council had talked to in March had died by October.

Jesus College’s property director, David Stevenson, said it had never intended to move homeless people from doorways.

Mr Stevenson said: “It has had that effect but it was not what it was designed to do.

"We need to make sure that building is secure so that we do not get unauthorised access into the building.

“(The reaction) is most unfortunate but that was not the intention.

"The college takes a very serious view (of homelessness).”

A Lush spokesman said: “It is a shame to us as a company, but also to all of us as a society, that the doorway of a boarded-up shop is the warmest and safest place that some people can currently hope for.

"Boarding up the recess of our old shop doorway was an error.

"Not least, it lets down our great Lush Oxford staff who do so much for the local homeless and have previously featured in the national news defending local homeless people using their doorway overnight.”

Of 80 homeless people surveyed in March, by October six were in prison, another 27 were refusing to work with services, 10 had disappeared and seven had moved away.

Tim Sadler, Oxford City Council’s executive director, said: “The council has spoken to both Lush and Jesus College about serious concerns, raised to the City Council by members of the public, about drug taking and used needles being found on their private land.

"This did not concern rough sleeping.

“As these concerns were about the behaviour of individuals, we suggested that Lush and Jesus College considered taking out injunctions against the specific individuals committing these offences to stop them from taking drugs or discarding needles on the organisations’ property.

“Neither Lush nor Jesus College were instructed by the city council to board up their doorways.”

Former homeless accommodation at Lucy Faithfull House, which closed after cuts to funding, is to be demolished in the coming months, while a new hostel is to be built in Rymers Lane, Cowley.

Councillor Tom Hayes, executive board member for community safety, said a review will seek to depoliticise the issue of homelessness.

He said: “We need to be making decisions which are working as efficiently and effectively at engaging these individuals into services.

"We need to take the politics out of this issue because we all need to be working together to make sure there’s a consistent message coming from the council that we’re here to support, engage and that we care."