REVEALED: Number of homeless people dying on streets of Sheffield triples in a year

According to figures released on Monday by the Office for National Statistics - ONS - the estimated number of deaths went up from five in 2017 to 15 in 2018.

Across the four local authorities which make up the Sheffield City Region - Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster - an estimated 23 people died while homeless in 2018, up from nine in 2017.

And in Yorkshire and the Humber the figures increased from 49 to 70 over the same period.

The statistics for Sheffield mirror the picture nationally, with the estimated number of deaths of homeless people increasing by 51 per cent over the last six years.

The ONS, however, say that some of this may be down to better recording.

Across the country, drug and alcohol was the cause of the vast majority of the deaths, accounting for more than 50 per cent of the total number.

The next biggest cause of death was suicide, which was the cause of more than one in 10 deaths.

The average age of those dying on the streets was 45 for men and 43 for women, although almost 9 in 10 deaths were men.

And most of the deaths were concentrated in big cities with the worst areas being London and the north-west of England.

Last year, homeless man Graham Green – who was originally from Chesterfield – died outside Poundland on High Street after consuming a lethal combination of Spice, alcohol and Red Bull.

And earlier this year, a homeless man who had struggled with addiction problems took his own life in Broomhill.