Call to give beggars jobs instead of ban

A SANDWICH shop owner has a solution for city centre businesses which have a problem with beggars – give them a job.

Josh Littlejohn, who owns Social Bite on Rose Street, employs three former Big Issue sellers, Peter and Joe Hart, and John Beveridge. His call came after Essential Edinburgh said beggars should be banned from the city centre. But Josh said: “Local business owners should offer jobs to homeless people. It seems to us to be a perverse society that we live in, when homeless people are brushed under the carpet.”

Andy Neal, chief executive of Essential Edinburgh, said he would not rule out employing a homeless person, as long as they had the relevant skills.