People slept out in the cold in Romford in a bid to raise awareness of homelessness.

Attendees slept out in sleeping bags - with no tents allowed - on November 25 to "experience what it is like to sleep out on the streets".

According to Crisis, the national charity for homeless people, there are currently 160,000 homeless households in Britain. Government figures suggest of almost half of those sleeping rough on a single night in autumn, 44 per cent are in London and the south east.

Held on the third floor of the multi-storey car park in The Brewery shopping centre, the night included "light entertainment" and guest speakers.

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Hayley Sterling, office and marketing manager at The Brewery, described it as “an insightful and surreal" experience.

“Waking up in a car park in a sleeping bag feeling cold, exposed and vulnerable emphasised how fortunate most of us are, and how simple things such as a bed and a place to call home are taken for granted.”

Alongside the event, The Brewery is also raising money for Romford-based Ahava Community, which provides a range of housing-related services, and Zarach, which delivers beds and other essentials to children in poverty.

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%image(15310768, type="article-full", alt="Tents were not allowed at the sleepout event at The Brewery")

The crowdfunder has so far raised over £8,000. The Brewery hopes to accrue up to £20,000 by December 31, beating the £10,000 raised from its last sleepout in 2019.

Kim Merry, founder and chief executive of Ahava Community, said the sleepout was “very cold, and very uncomfortable".

“I would like to paint a more glamorous picture, but I certainly appreciated far more what it would be like. It was almost impossible to get comfortable, and I was watching the minutes tick by.”

She said any money raised will be used to convert the community shelter's four rooms into 12.

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Keith Prince, London Assembly Member for Havering and Redbridge and an attendee on the night, said for him, “what came home to me was the reality of it”.

He said: “The thought of actually having to do that every night, terrifying.

"We were very lucky because we were in the car park, which was undercover. Whereas as a rough sleeper, I may not have been that lucky.”

Another participant was Cllr Michael Deon Burton. In his address at the sleepout, he said: “The truth is I know nothing of what it is like to be homeless, nor genuinely not knowing where the next meal is coming from, or so cold my life is in jeopardy.

“That which I do know is each and every one of us, no matter how comfortable our lifestyle, we are all only four or five unexpected and continuous calamities from finding ourselves without a roof over our heads."

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Donate at https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/brewery-sleepout