“HEADWAY” is being made in tackling rough sleeping in Wiltshire, civic chiefs heard.

A presentation about Wiltshire Council’s homelessness strategy and the situation in the Salisbury area was made to the city’s area board last Thursday.

Nicole Smith, the head of operational housing at Wiltshire Council, said figures for rough sleepers across Wiltshire had seen a “gradual increase” since 2014.

The unofficial count in November 2017 showed there were 31 people sleeping on the streets in Wiltshire and 14 in Salisbury. In September 2018 this rose to 42 across the county, but dipped to 10 in Salisbury.

Nevertheless, a formal count in November of the same year showed there were only 22 in the county with nine in Salisbury.

Ms Smith said: “We are making headway. It’s been challenging, I think in Salisbury we have some very entrenched, long standing rough sleepers but we are actively working with them and doing everything we can to get them into suitable accommodation or into rehabilitation.

“We are making headway. It is challenging.”

She also told the meeting that the council had been successful in a bid to the government for rough sleeping initiative funding for a second year.

The meeting heard £312,245 of funding was obtained for 2018/19 and for 2019/20 there would be £305,491.

She said: “With that funding we have managed to develop a rough sleeping team. We have now got a rough sleeping team co-ordinator who has a team of six staff dedicated to working with rough sleeping on the street. They are not office based, they are all outreach workers and are out there working with our rough sleepers across Wiltshire.

“When I last came to you we had one rough sleeper coordinator for the whole of Wiltshire. Now, we have a much larger team and we have a dedicated officer specifically for Salisbury.”

The meeting at City Hall heard there was additional provision in Salisbury with bed spaces for “entrenched, complex, multiple issue” rough sleepers in the Salisbury area, which were provided by Alabare.

Ten additional winter spaces were also now available in Chippenham, which were in addition to the ones already available in Salisbury.

The public can flag up concerns about rough sleepers by using streetlink.org.uk, the meeting heard, which is then reported to the council can then provide support to that person.

The meeting also heard, Wiltshire Council has been developing a homelessness strategy, which is currently out for consultation.