{"id":361598,"date":"2018-05-17T13:21:40","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T12:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/windsor-police-threaten-to-tow-windsor-charity-bus-parked-outside-castle-rt-uk-news\/"},"modified":"2018-05-17T13:21:40","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T12:21:40","slug":"windsor-police-threaten-to-tow-windsor-charity-bus-parked-outside-castle-rt-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/windsor-police-threaten-to-tow-windsor-charity-bus-parked-outside-castle-rt-uk-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Windsor Police threaten to tow Windsor charity bus parked outside castle \u2014 RT UK News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2018.05\/thumbnail\/5afd6f97dda4c825618b4601.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>        A homeless charity bus, in Windsor for the royal wedding, was branded an \u201cobstruction\u201d by police who threatened to tow it. The charity believes officials were waiting for media to clear off before police issued the directive.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Ark Project charity bus had spent 12 hours parked across from the castle during the day, as thousands of people and cars descended on Windsor in the lead-up to Saturday\u2019s royal wedding. The Reading-based charity told RT that they <em>\u201cran into issues straight away.\u201d \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cYesterday at 11am [on arrival] \u00a0we were told it was an obstruction,\u201d<\/em> Ark Project CEO Michael Longsmith said. <em>\u201cFor hours, tens of thousands of people were walking and driving past but it was okay. Then last night at 11.30pm we got a phone call telling us to move or they\u2019d tow us away.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qDNp3M6X94k\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Longsmith, 42, said that the late-night sense of urgency was likely due to the absence of the media\u2019s prying eyes.<em> \u201c[We felt] disbelief but we got up and moved it,\u201d he said. \u201cNow we\u2019re just parked round the corner, out of eyesight from the castle.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Ark bus offers local homeless people the<em> \u201cfull monty service \u2013 beds, showers, toilets, a change of clothes,\u201d<\/em> Longman said. The charity also provides individual case workers to each rough sleeper, to take them to appointments, help them find permanent housing, and work or rehab.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/426913-royal-wedding-bbc-harry-meghan\/\">READ MORE:\u00a0BBC\u2019s \u2018mindless\u2019 late night Royal Wedding push notification pushes some over the edge<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The police have already been spotted taking sleeping bags and other belongings from Windor\u2019s homeless in the lead up to the wedding. A Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead spokesman told the Times that for those <em>\u201cnot wanting to take up the offer of somewhere to stay, an offer is being made to keep their possessions safe while the town sees an unprecedented number of visitors.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, Thames Valley Police said that the royal wedding <em>\u201cis a public event, so everyone is welcome&#8221;.<\/em> Thames Valley Police Superintendent Jim Weems told the Express that the police <em>\u201cwill support people on the procession route and we will work with them in what will probably be very busy streets.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Local residents have told RT that police are telling the public there is a <em>\u201czero tolerance\u201d<\/em> policy on sleeping bags, and that the homeless<em> \u201care being told that they\u2019ll be arrested, however both the law and press statements say otherwise.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mi0L9dFh87E\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Longsmith told RT that some rough sleepers in central Windsor have turned down their help so they can make the most money from the influx of royal wedding tourists to feed their drug addictions.<\/p>\n<p>The 42 year old added that of those who had refused help, the majority were drug addicts raising money to fuel their narcotics habit. <em>\u201cThey will not move out of the city centre,\u201d<\/em> he said. <em>\u201cThey\u2019ve got addictions they need help with. We\u2019re not going to give up on them so we\u2019re hoping they\u2019ll learn to trust us.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>One person begging reportedly made \u00a3400 on Wednesday and was arrested in the early hours of Thursday morning by police after being caught smoking crack cocaine at a bus stop across from Windsor Castle, where Meghan Markle will wed Prince Harry in two days\u2019 time.<\/p>\n<p>The Ark Project CEO added that some vagrants who reside outside of the city center have gladly accepted their assistance.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rlangjournalist\">&#8211; Rachel Lang, RT UK<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/426996-homeless-winsdor-royal-wedding\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A homeless charity bus, in Windsor for the royal wedding, was branded an \u201cobstruction\u201d by police who threatened to tow it. The charity believes officials were waiting for media to clear off before police issued the directive. The Ark Project charity bus had spent 12 hours parked across from the castle during the day, as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":361599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-361598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}