I do wish the title of this fundraiser was a joke, because we thought it was too.

Myself and my partner have both recently moved to the Manchester area from Southport. As my partner is physically disabled, between work and funds we hadn’t been able to go out together until just the other day.

Around the Manchester picadilly area we stopped at a nearby McDonald’s for a small bite to eat. Nothing crazy, just a wrap of the day for us both. As we stood outside and began to eat, a pigeon came up to us looking for some food. What I would assume to be the natural kind hearted response to this, I picked off a small part of the wrap to feed to it. Unknowingly this would become a fatal error for us, as not a minute after two tall security guards cornered us, telling us it was an offence to discard food on the floor. I tried my best to explain to the man while panicking that we were very new to the area, not even a month of living here, and that this was our first time out and we had no idea this rule existed. He said that he would let us off with a warning but proceeded to ask for my ID for “verification”. Since I am panicking and my partner is disabled I do feel we were in a very vulnerable position at that time, so without thinking I handed my ID over. After taking my details, the proposition of just a warning seemed to disappear as the man prints out a receipt fine for £150 for ‘discarded food’.

In this moment we are both freaking out, £150?! For feeding a pigeon? I look around at the floor, pointing out to the man that this discarded food he is fining us for is long gone as the pigeons had eaten it and left before he had even started talking to us. Outraged by this stupid fine, I refused to take the paper copy to which he replied that it would be mailed to my address.

So now I’m at this point, both me and my partner are struggling to keep the roof above our heads between one working income and benefits for disability- and now we are faced with this massive fine for feeding a bird. No warning, no signs to say you can’t feed the birds or anything. Just slapped with a fine that if we don’t pay will increase and we will be taken to court, which again- we can’t exactly afford.

I guess the Manchester City council would rather the birds eat cigarette butts (I queried it at the time, throwing down bird seed gets you the same fine).

Please if you have spare money to help us out with this fine it would be greatly appreciated. Anything towards this would be a major help. We are trying to appeal the fine currently but it’s looking more like we will have to just bite the bullet and pay for this stupidity.

Thank you for reading and thank you so much to those who choose to donate. I have seen many articles of people being taken to court and fined over the exact same thing (feeding pigeons) in the Manchester area. Something needs to change about this. A sign at least, some sort of warning.