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People sleeping rough are to be counted in Bath, York, Oxford, Tunbridge Wells and other traditional tourist centres in a Government move which extends its rough sleepers initiative outside central London.

Shelter, the housing charity, will carry out the counts on contract in the early summer as part of a survey of rough sleeping in 23 towns and cities outside the central London area. The Government is promising at least some funds to tackle the issue where it is worst. The move follows the relative success in cutting the numbers sleeping rough in London.

Other urban areas to be counted include Manchester, Birmingham, Leicester, Nottingham, Cambridge, Norwich, Exeter, Gloucester, Basingstoke, Bournemouth, Brighton, Reading and the London boroughs of Barnet, Ealing, Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea, Richmond, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest.