A group of squatters vowed to take their high-stakes standoff with the police and bailiffs into Christmas Day after protestors scaled the balcony of a five-story Victorian building in central London.

Two members of the self-styled “Love Activists” refused to leave the former RBS office when bailiffs arrived to evict them on Wednesday morning.

As police officers and bailiffs looked on, the squatters climbed on to the ledge of a first-floor balcony of the grade II-listed building on the corner of Charing Cross Road and St Martin’s Lane.

The squatters took over the vacant building earlier this week and planned to provide a free festive lunch to homeless people on Christmas Day in protest at the housing crisis.

Most of the squatters left the building when the bailiffs turned up, but two activists refused to leave and took to the ledge of a 30ft-high balcony as a police officer stood nearby. About 10 police officers were at the scene, with a police van and ambulance on standby.

Concerns grew for the safety of the balcony protesters as the temperature dropped, prompting paramedics to warn that they risked losing their balance if they refused to come down.

A Metropolitan police spokesman confirmed that officers had been called in by the bailiffs to prevent a breach of the peace. No arrests had been made at the time of publication.

One of the squatters on the balcony, Danny Freeman, 22, told the Guardian: “We heard banging on the door at 8am and some people forced their way in. We don’t know who they were because they wouldn’t tell us and have not provided us with any paperwork.

“I climbed on to the balcony and then I called the police. I can’t put into words how distressed I feel about this. We won’t be able to provide Christmas lunch for the homeless now and about 50 people who were sleeping here will be homeless over Christmas. I’m here for the long haul, I’m not planning to come down from the balcony. I’d rather spend Christmas here than in the cells.”

Squatters and police https://t.co/ozMh7rLhUI — Hannah EllisPetersen (@HannahEP) December 24, 2014

In October, Freeman carried out a protest by standing on a Winston Churchill statue in Parliament Square in London in a 28-hour standoff with police.

About 50 protesters – including some who said they were homeless – turned up to support the occupation with rallying chants of “homes not banks”. The standoff was mostly peaceful, but police officers at one point scuffled with a protestor who tried to push back their barriers.

Pete Phoenix, one of the protesters, was invited inside the building by police negotiators to speak to the protesters on the balcony. “There are ambulance staff, police officers and police negotiators inside the building. The ambulance staff have warned the protesters that their legs have got very cold which makes the blood supply pool in their feet, this could lead them to faint and fall off the ledge. They are getting very cold and we are concerned about them,” he said.

“They are very determined and say they believe the cause they are protesting about is so important that they are prepared to be arrested. They have refused requests from the police negotiators to leave the balcony.”

The occupation came after the current owner of the building, Greencap Ltd, was granted an emergency high court injunction on Wednesday morning, allowing bailiffs to evict individuals named in court as “persons unknown”.

Protesters are urgently seeking an out of hours hearing with a high court judge to vary or discharge the court order to allow them to serve a Christmas Day meal to the homeless.

Paul Ridge, a solicitor from the law firm Bindmans who has been offering legal advice to the protesters, questioned the need for Greencap Ltd to bring an emergency injunction. “The protesters were issued with a without notice injunction from the high court but I don’t think the urgency was there to justify an injunction of this kind,” he said.

A protester, who gave his name as Agent Smith, said the balcony protesters would hold out for as long as they could. “One of them has some previous experience of holding out in the cold against eviction for quite some time, and this time there’s two of them, so I’m sure they’ll stick it out for a while,” he said. “It could very well be they are there over Christmas as they are not coming down anytime soon.”

He said they still planned to serve a free Christmas Day meal to the homeless and he was baffled as to why bailiffs would be called on Christmas Eve. “I don’t see how anyone couldn’t see that it wasn’t an absolutely worthwhile, honourable cause,” he said. “The building had remained empty for two years and we had set up an excellent community project, hoping to feed homeless and vulnerable people at this time of year. And we had educational workshops going on, there was a library in there, space for children and families to hang out and meet people. I can’t fathom why they would have done such a thing and got the bailiffs in at this time of year.”

Built in 1890 by Robert Walker in Portland stone and listed by English Heritage as a site of special historical and architectural interest, the property boasts a penthouse suite with aerial views of the capital, dozens of rooms, spaces for entertaining, and a secure vault in the basement.

Love Activists protesters in central London Photograph: Diane Taylor

Outside on the pavement, they had plentiful supplies of broccoli, potatoes and other vegetables and a supermarket trolley piled high with rucksacks, a couple of guitars and a dog named Zeus.

“We will stay up on the balcony for as long as it takes,” said a 21-year-old woman who gave her name as Mouse.

The tense atmosphere was broken by passersby who gave protesters fruit and cakes, and a friendly police officer who corrected a spelling mistake in chalking on the pavement: “Trying to help homeless evicted on Christmas Eve.”

In a video from earlier this week, the squatters explain how they are seeking new solutions to the city’s housing crisis. Video: Ross Domoney Guardian

Protesters lie on the ground next to police outside the old RBS building near Trafalgar Square. Photograph: Hannah Ellis Petersen/Guardian