NOBODY wants to see people sleeping rough on our streets.

Exposed to the cold and, sadly, as we have reported more than once this year, at risk of serious attacks from passers-by.

For their own good we do not want to see these people struggling to get by and living outside.

They need help.

Nobody should move to our city or our country, for that matter, to sleep rough, this is not good for anyone.

But Richard Williams, chairman of Brighton refugee charity Sanctuary on Sea, hits the nail on the head when he doubts whether that was really the case in today’s story on page 8.

It is highly unlikely that these 10 people all decided to come to Brighton and Hove to live outside Poundland in North Street or the Co-op in Western Road.

Our city is very attractive but it is a stretch to believe these people came here from Poland, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, Switzerland and Germany to do that. Even if they did they must have been very desperate people.

Whatever their reasons, they will have become desperate living on the streets.

If people have no local link in the city and are homeless they are, as we have reported, helped to return to their home city and will struggle to get financial help here.

We may even buy them a train ticket to get back there. But they are never arrested and marched back up the A23 and beyond.

If you are from outside the UK this is what will happen to you. That is, if you have been here for less than three months and find yourself on the streets.

Welcome to Britain – but fail to get work and afford housing and you are out on your ear, sorry. You have three months. Good luck.