Research has shown social housing residents are less likely to report anti-social behaviour (ASB) now than in previous years. This is why it’s a good opportunity to reach out during ASB Awareness week and encourage residents to get in contact if they’ve got ASB problems.
What is ASB?
There are many different types of ASB ranging from excessive noise through to physical violence and hate incidents/crimes. ASB may be caused deliberately or may be a nuisance that has reached an unacceptable level.
How do Southern Housing deal with ASB?
We follow our ASB procedure to deal with ASB reports. When a resident contacts us, we’ll take all the details from them. We'll then agree what we’ll do to investigate (e.g. contact other neighbours affected or agencies involved) and how we’ll update them.
The summer is our busiest period for ASB, so I’d ask people to be extra considerate of their neighbours, when they’re playing their music or doing things outside.
Taking action
After we’ve completed the investigation, we’ll then consider further action to stop the ASB. The action we take depends very much on the strength of the evidence we have, the seriousness of the incident, and whether there’s been previous incidents.
We’re expected to be reasonable in the action we take and use legal action as a last resort. In most cases, we use informal measures first to try and stop the ASB (such as warning letters or getting the person causing the problem to sign an agreement about future behaviour), this is often enough. If problems persist, we’ll investigate and decide on appropriate further action.
What if Southern Housing don’t consider the issue to be ASB?
Sometimes a resident reports a problem that doesn’t meet the threshold to be dealt with through our ASB procedure. The nuisance may not be caused deliberately such as noise from people moving around their home or children playing. We can offer to deal with the issue through our Good Neighbourhood Management (GNM) procedure which involves us working with the residents involved to reach an agreement to resolve the problem.
What’s happening during ASB action week
This week our officers will be reaching out to residents, encouraging them to report issues to us. Dealing with new ASB reports and where necessary signposting residents to additional support. They’ll be linking up with partners to share information about incidents and agree actions to stop the ASB. They may even need to take emergency court action to prevent ASB or assist the police or the local authority with the action they’re taking.