Anti-social behaviour

Firstly, we’ll make sure we’re the right people to help you, and if we’re not, we’ll refer you to the right agency for your case.

If we are the right people, we’ll aim to get back to you within two working days for the following:

• Hate Crime or harassment - on grounds of race, disability, sex, sexual orientation, belief or religion or gender reassignment
• Physical assault – an actual assault involving physical violence
• Sex Offences – including prostitution and sexual offences against children
• Drugs and County Lines – proven substance misuse cases where the police have carried out a warrant or arrested a resident
• Serious Criminal Activity – if a resident, a leaseholder, a member of their household or a visitor to their property has been found guilty of a criminal offence that is listed in the absolute grounds for possession.
• Extremism and radicalisation

And within five working days for the following:

• Other criminal activity – suspicion of or criminal activity including arrest for criminal damage
• Noise – e.g. loud music, shouting (including arguments), banging doors
• Other violent activity – where there is a threat of violent activity such as threats made using a weapon
• Communal areas – people hanging around in communal areas causing ASB.
• Alcohol related – the behaviour is as a result of excessive drinking
• Dog nuisance – including persistent dog barking and aggressive behaviour

When we get in touch, we’ll chat through your situation and create an action plan together. This will include details of how regularly we’ll contact you, what our first steps will look like and what we’d like you to do to support our investigations, which may include completing diary sheets. If you feel like you need additional support, we can refer you to victim support.

If needed, we’ll work closely with other agencies such as the Police and your Local Authority. We’ll also talk to neighbours and contact the household causing the ASB to complete our investigation.

Taking legal action is a last resort. We’ll always try and resolve the issue before it gets to this stage, by issuing verbal or written warnings and working with the ASB offender on an action plan.

We may need to arrange for an independent assessor to meet with you to work towards a positive resolution, if this is the right option. Our independent assessment service is NFS and you can read more about them here: http://www.nfsmediation.org.uk/.

This is also known as the Community Trigger. If you feel that your ASB report hasn’t been dealt with properly, you can ask your local council to look into it for you. The council will review the complaints that have been made and what action has been taken by agencies, such as the police, social landlords and environmental health.

Before councils can carry out this review, they’ll check that the request meets their threshold. Thresholds can vary from council to council but it’s usually three separate complaints of ASB in the last six months. You can get more information from your local council.

The ASB case review doesn’t replace our complaints process and you can still make a complaint about how your case has been handled in the usual way.