A HAMPSHIRE council is taking legal steps to evict a tramp from its multistorey car park.

For the last two months the homeless man has been sleeping rough in one of the top floors of the car park at Eastleigh.

Despite temperatures plummeting to below zero he has been regularly kipping down in the building which is in the heart of the town centre.

But now the council say it is time that he moved on.

It is the first time that the council has had to go to the courts to move on a vagrant from the Southampton Road multi-storey.

The legal moves were started when the council made an application to a Southampton County Court judge.

Notices pinned to the doors of the ground floor and 12th floor car park levels give details of the court's decision ordering the man to quit the building.

If he does not abide with the order the council can without a further hearing authorise the bailiff or High Court enforcement officer to evict him.

He can apply to the court to stay the eviction while it decides whether there is grounds to do so.

It is understood that the homeless man, who is believed to be his thirties, moves into the multistorey at the end of the day when most of the town's workers and shoppers have driven home.

Council officials say there have been signs that he has been using a stairwell, near the 12th floor as a sleeping quarters.

An Eastleigh council spokesman said: "He has occupied the building for at least two months. He has not left the premises and the order has been served and bailiffs are to be appointed to carry out the eviction if he does not voluntarily comply with the order.

CRISIS, the national charity which fights homelessness, said they were shocked to hear that someone had been sleeping rough in a multi-storey car park.

The charity's director of policy and research Duncan Shrubsole said: "It is a scandal that people such as this have little choice but to sleep rough in our society. "