A DECISION will be made next Tuesday (10) on whether or not to set up a safe zone around a sexual health clinic in Mattock Lane, Ealing. 

Ealing Council cabinet members will consider evidence gathered over several months about activity outside the Marie Stopes clinic.

It will also consider the views of people who took part in a public consultation. 

The eight-week consultation received 2,181 online survey responses and more than 1,500 emails and letters.

Council officers also consulted with police, community representatives and people living and working in the proposed safe zone area.   
 

Activity outside the clinic was highlighted through a petition submitted to the council in July last year. 

Organised by women in the area, it called on the council to explore ways of introducing a ‘buffer zone’ outside the clinic and was signed by 3,593 people. 

A report from the borough’s community safety team recommends a safe zone be introduced. Its recommendations are intended to address the behaviour of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice groups outside the clinic.  

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Before a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) can be agreed, councillors must be satisfied it is both necessary and would provide a proportionate response.

If a PSPO is agreed, the safe zone can be introduced immediately and anyone who breaches the order would be committing a criminal offence.

The world’s oldest pro-life group, the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, has condemned the proposals.

Antonia Tully, director of campaigns said: “A measure to prevent peaceful, prayerful people from standing quietly near the entrance of the abortion clinic, to offer help to vulnerable women, strikes at the heart of the freedoms we enjoy in this country.

“What is so terrible about offering women last-minute help as they approach the abortion clinic? Every year, hundreds of women take advantage of this help.

“Hundreds of children are alive today because their mothers encountered the Good Counsel Network outside the clinic.

 “We urge Ealing Council to look honestly at why women feel upset and vulnerable at the prospect of having an abortion and why pro-life help is vital for women.

“If Ealing introduces a PSPO in Mattock Lane, it will be remembered as the first council to forbid peaceful public acts of witness and freedom of expression.”