A STREET poet who has been banned by the council from scrawling his words on the streets of Swindon is back, with the officials behind the ban his latest targets.

Danny Rowland, formerly Danny Lake, took to Regent Street on Friday to mock the council’s lack of enforcement action since the announcement of new powers earlier this year.

A Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) was introduced in February to cover the town centre – it focuses on issues such as keeping dogs on leads, begging, aggressive charity collecting and public drinking.

Marking surfaces without the permission of the council is also prohibited which was widely seen as an effort to target Rowland specifically after his chalk coverings became a regular fixture along Regent Street and on Wharf Green.

The order provides the council and the police with the power to issue £100 on the spot fines for a breach or to prosecute individuals in the hope of securing fines of up to £1,000 from the courts.

Despite the threat of these financial penalties, Rowland – the self-styled ‘pavement poet’ – is determined to defy the new rules.

He said: “They’ve introduced this PSPO which I think they’ve made a lot of errors with.

“It says in the Secretary of State’s guidelines that they’re not supposed to use it against street entertainers or buskers because they’re a vital part of the cultural life of our towns and cities.

“I go to Bath and they invite me to give a talk at the university, I go to Cardiff and I have police officers sticking their pound coins in the tin and reading the poems – only Swindon Council take this attitude.

“I’m sort of hoping they do try to prosecute me for it, I’d love my day in court.

“I’m certain a judge would throw it and I want my chance to make that case."

In his most recent display, Rowland overtly went after the council, taking direct aim at the officer leading on the PSPO.

He described him as 'the clown from Swindon town, who bans the word chalked down' saying 'I do not have the time, for men who think it's fine, to ban my rainbow rhymes.'

Rowland added: “This one is directed at the council and the person in charge of the PSPO.

“What seems to happen is when I’m finished at the end of the day they come down and take photos – I’m hoping they take this one back to him so he can read it.”

A spokesman for Swindon Borough Council said: “So far we have relied on verbal warnings within the PSPO area, but we are aware of Mr Lake’s latest activities.

“We have a number of potential legal measures that we can use against him that are additional to those available to us under the PSPO, and we are considering those options at the moment.”