Anti-social Behaviour and CANAcT

• Your Responsibilities
• Extreme Cases
• Serious Anti-social behaviour
• Serious Nuisance/Tenancy breaches
• General anti-social behaviour
• Dealing with Nuisance
• Noise Nuisance

What is antisocial behaviour?

Anti-social behaviour is behaviour or behaviours likely to cause nuisance, annoyance, alarm, harassment or distress to one or more people not of the same household as the perpetrator.

We have listed some different types of antisocial behaviour, this list isn't exhaustive but will help you identify if you are suffering from anti-social behaviour and what to expect from us.

We take all cases of anti-social behaviour seriously, but some cases need more investigation than others. To manage this we have divided anti-social behaviour into three categories with our target response times. The response times do not mean we are not taking action in the meantime.

Your Responsibilities

As a tenant or owner, you are responsible for the behaviour of everyone who lives in or visits the property.

You, and anyone you are responsible for, must not cause a nuisance, or annoy or disturb any other person in the property, on surrounding land, in shared areas, in the locality or in or around Council offices.

We will take quick and appropriate action to deal with anti-social behaviour in and around the properties we manage.

Extreme Cases - we will respond within 1 working day

• Racial Harrassment
• Hate crimes and incidents (this may include race, disability, religion, sexuality, mental health, gender or age).
• Sexual Harrassment
• Threats of violence
• Actual violence
• Drug production / supply
• Dangerous dogs (including those used for intimidation)
• Criminal damage involving violence
• Arson

Serious Anti-social behaviour - we will respond within 5 working days  

• Noise Nuisance
• Drug use or drug smells
• Verbal abuse
• Alchol related nuisance
• Prostitution
• Intimidation
• Criminal Damage to communal areas or property

General Anti-social Behaviour - we will respond within 10 working days 

• Access disputes
• Litter, rubbish, refuse disposal and fly tipping
• Nuisance from vehicles such as untaxed vehicles and repairs
• Pet and animal nuisance
• Running a business without permission
• Untidy gardens
• Misuse of communal gardens or communal areas
• Parking disputes where no restrictions are in place

Dealing with Nuisance

What You Can Do

Try talking to the people involved politely and calmly. Explain how the nuisance is affecting you. People often do not realise they are causing a nuisance and are willing to moderate their behaviour.

Keep a record of things when they happen.

Please remember we are unlikely to get involved when a dispute involves two neighbours unless there is a clear breach of the Tenancy Agreement.

Mediation can help you and your neighbour come to an agreement, and is often the best way forward in such cases.

What We Can Do

If you are affected by any of the above or feel harassed or threatened by others, we can help.

Please contact our specialist Crime and Nuisance Action Team (CANAcT) who will investigate all complaints and work with you and others to gather evidence.

They will then decide on the best course of action to solve the problems you are experiencing, this could be legal action against the tenancy of the perpetrator or a referral to mediation.

Who are CANAcT?

CANAcT are the Crime And Nuisance Action Team who were formed in 2001 in the light of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, with a specific remit to address issues of anti social behaviour within the community.

What we can't do?

Complaints about people mowing their lawn, children playing, people walking around are not anti-social behaviour and we won't be able to investigate these. We would consider these lifestyle differences, unless there is evidence of anti-social behaviour which would cause upset to the neighbours such as mowing the lawn after midnight.

We have a mediation service which can help you talk to your neighbours about lifestyle clashes if you feel you can't raise the subject.

Noise Nuisance

If the noise is created by loud music or television, or pubs or clubs this must be reported to our Environmental Health team first. They will tell us about your report. Please visit our Noise Pollution page for details.

Page last reviewed 8 March 2012