The Martin Place encampment that has become a symbol of the city's homelessness problem was all but swept from the streets on Saturday by Clover Moore's City of Sydney council, in part to make way for a property development.

Underneath banners advertising a charity CEO Sleepout ("Homelessness Doesn't Have a Postcode," the banners declare) staff employed by the council moved quickly on Saturday morning to remove rows of bedding and furnishings that had built up at the north-eastern end of Martin Place.

Nigel Blakemore, who had been living in Martin Place, cleans up belongings after the City of Sydney removed the homeless camp. Credit:Anna Kucera

The removal of the camp came amid a tense morning of negotiations between the Council's director of city operations, David Riordan, and the organisers of what had become, over the past six months, a community of Sydney's homeless.

"I was a broken man when I came here three months ago," said Nigel Blakemore, one of the camp's residents. "Now I'm ready to take on the world, get back on my feet."