Dozens of outreach workers step up efforts to bring vulnerable rough sleepers in from the cold

Dozens of outreach workers have stepped up efforts to help bring vulnerable rough sleepers in from the cold as London experiences its longest period of freezing weather for seven years.

Around 500 extra beds in shelters, hostels and churches have been made available in the capital through local authorities, charities, faith and community groups after a Swep (Severe Weather Emergency Protocol) plan was triggered.

In response to the bitter conditions, St Mungo's homeless charity and the City of London have opened a new emergency shelter - in the Guild Church of Saint Mary Aldermary - which took in seven people on its first night.

St Mungo's said London was experiencing its most prolonged period of freezing conditions for seven years, with overnight temperatures dipping to minus 3C in the capital's snow-blanketed centre.

Sam, who has been sleeping rough for five days, was found just before midnight on Wednesday in an underpass next to a London Underground station.

He had no sleeping bag or blanket, and would have spent the whole night with nothing but the clothes he was wearing if the outreach team had not taken him to a shelter.

Speaking inside, he said he was "very, very grateful", adding that he had felt "cold but relieved that someone was there, that someone actually cared", when the St Mungo's workers approached him.

Asked how he had managed the cold, he said:

Kathleen Sims, the charity's rough sleepers service development manager, said Sam had been forced on to the streets after fleeing "squalid conditions in the outskirts of London where he was being made to work for little to no money".

Petra Salva, director of rough sleeper services, said deaths on the streets over the bitterly cold snap were "a horrific possibility".