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The number of people sleeping rough in London has risen by 16 per cent, including a 90 per cent surge in the number of Romanians on the streets, according to new figures.

Almost 7,600 people were seen sleeping on London’s streets by outreach workers in 2014-15, compared with 6,508 the year before.

The official figures showed almost 57 per cent of rough sleepers were foreign nationals, with a third of the total coming from Central and Eastern Europe.

Romanians were the single biggest nationality, after British, representing 19 per cent of the total, the equivalent of 1,388 people.

This was up 90 per cent from the previous year when there were just 730 Romanian rough sleepers.

It came as a group of more than a dozen homeless people, believed to be from Romania, were pictured living in the grounds of a telephone exchange in central London just metres away from Scotland Yard.

Their camp in Christchurch Gardens in Westminster, which is equipped with double beds and sofas and strewn with rubbish, has been compared by locals to “a shanty town”.

One in ten rough sleepers in the capital - around 700 - have served in the armed forces at some point in their lives.

A third were British veterans, who have historically been among the most entrenched rough sleepers but have been targeted by charities and the Mayor.

City Hall aides said they were disappointed that overall numbers had increased - and admitted they struggled to deal with the large number of EU migrants.

They revealed the Mayor had allocated £70 million extra funding over the next four years to help tackle the problem, £30 million of which would be spent on refurbishing hostels and £5 million on setting up a dedicated HQ for his successful No Second Night Out scheme.

Richard Blakeway, deputy mayor for housing, said: “Very few of those who end up on the streets stay there long-term. In fact, more than two-thirds of rough sleepers new to the streets spend only one night out.

“For those who do stay, we are working closely with London boroughs, voluntary sector organisations, the police and the Home Office to provide the assistance they need to get off the streets and stay off the streets.”

Westminster had the biggest problem, with a third of the total, or around 2,570 people, sleeping in its doorways, parks and multi-storey car-parks.

Six other boroughs recorded more than 300 people - Camden (563), Lambeth (468), Tower Hamlets (377), City of London (373), Southwark (373) and Brent (359). Southwark was the only one that saw a decrease.

The majority of rough sleepers, 86 per cent, were male and just over one in ten, 880 people, were under 26. Just nine were under 18 years old.

Tom Copley, Labour’s housing spokesman on the London Assembly, said: “In 2009 Boris Johnson promised to end rough sleeping by the Olympics, but it’s gone up every single year since then.

“It’s absolutely astonishing that the mayor went so far as telling London Assembly members yesterday that the ‘real peak has passed’ when these figures tell an opposite tale.

“This is undoubtedly the mayor’s most tragic failing and another in a long line of his broken pledges.”

The figures show that two thirds of rough sleepers who were new to the streets only spent one night there before being helped by outreach workers.

Just two per cent of the total, or 183 rough sleepers, were thought to be living permanently on the streets. Just six people were seen every week.

The figures showed a third of the total had served time in prison, while 10 per cent had experience of the care system. More than four in ten had mental health needs or a problem with alcohol. Three in ten had a drugs problem.

The housing crisis in London also appeared to be a factor with 1,665 rough sleepers reporting they had previously lived in long-term accommodation, including 1,115 from private rented homes.