The long battle against antisocial behaviour
Dave Carter reports from the front line
Efforts to deal with a nightmare tenant in Blay Close, who has been subjecting neighbouring residents to constant late night noise and intimidating behaviour, have led to a move to get the city council to improve its procedures. IWCA activist Dave Carter explains why there is still a long way to go before the relevant authorities really start to take the problem of antisocial behaviour seriously and how an IWCA council motion should start getting them to do this.
For a number of years the IWCA has been working to sort out antisocial behaviour problems. Initially we were the only organisation on the estate prepared to draw attention to the issue and demand that all residents should have the right to enjoy their lives at home in peace, without the stress, disturbance and intimidation caused by a small, selfish minority.
Slowly the council and housing associations started to take notice of the problem—although they were slower to actually start taking effective action. Nonetheless, a procedure has been developed to deal with residents’ complaints and, in the worst cases, to gather evidence to secure the eviction of an antisocial tenant.
How effective is this procedure? My recent involvement in a case involving a house in Blay Close has shown me how far we still have to go in getting the council to really take the issue seriously. In particular, the way the council treats diary evidence—the day-by-day record of incidents that those making a complaint are asked to fill out—leaves a lot to be desired and needs tightening-up.
Residents in Blay Close and nearby have been forced to put up with constant noise from parties, cars and scooters, and even football matches—all late at night—from one particular house for well over a year now. There has also been intimidation, in one case with a pellet gun. The residents complained to the council and were asked to fill out incident diaries to record the problems. In the meantime, however, no steps were being taken to warn the problem tenant and start proceedings against them because their landlord was in fact a housing association.
Oxford Citizens Housing Association (OCHA) was renting the house from the council and had placed the antisocial tenant there. When the IWCA made enquiries, after residents got in touch with us, we were told that OCHA were claiming they weren’t aware of the problem because they hadn’t received a complaint. As the diary evidence will probably only count from the time after the landlord officially received a complaint then residents have, up till now, been wasting their time diligently filling in diaries.
It isn’t clear where exactly responsibility lies for this cock-up. Was it the housing association or the council? And if the council then which department? However, this isn’t the first time that residents have been given diaries to fill in before anyone involved had any clear idea of how they were to be used.
The effect on residents of being told that many months—and in some cases much longer—of diary testimony is completely useless is potentially disastrous. Understandably, this has a demoralising effect and when residents are suffering the stress of antisocial behaviour as well this is the last thing they need. The danger in cases like these is that residents see the whole process as pointless and give up trying to pursue the complaint. This makes things worse for all of us as it is vital that people on Blackbird Leys see antisocial behaviour as a problem that can be tackled and is worth trying to do something about.
In order to address this the IWCA has tabled a motion for the next meeting of Oxford City Council, calling for a review of procedures for dealing with complaints against antisocial behaviour. The aim is to ensure that residents are told straight up what needs to be done and what the chances of success are.
The evidence diaries should only be used when there is a game plan and not to fob people off. Otherwise residents will conclude that the diary system is being used to pass the buck—if the diaries aren’t filled out in exactly the right way then, conveniently, it saves the authorities from having to take the case further. There are also far too many delays and a real effort should be made to speed things up so that people aren’t left endlessly waiting for something to happen while the stress of antisocial behaviour carries on and on.
We hope that the main parties on the council—Labour and the Lib Dems—will sit up and take notice. And we also hope they will be shamed into lending their support for attempts to improve the council’s procedures.
Lack of political will
The IWCA has long argued that council and housing association tenants pay their rents not just for a roof over their heads but also for a decent environment. Landlords have an obligation to take steps against antisocial tenants who are ruining things for everyone else.
However, they have generally been reluctant to do this because of the costs involved in re-letting properties and especially in bringing court cases. In the current political climate the needs of working class people are pushed to the bottom of the list of priorities. Because of successive Tory and then New Labour policies, funding for council housing has been cut, even though tenants are paying billions in rent. If local authority housing standards are low then what pressure is there on social landlords such as housing associations to be any better?
So although the main political parties now bang on about antisocial behaviour, especially at elections, they are clearly not really interested in solving the problem since none of them are prepared to put more money into social housing—which could easily come from the money already paid in rent—or to ensure that local government is properly funded so that it has the resources to deal with disruptive tenants.
By calling for a more effective approach to tackling antisocial behaviour in the council chamber the IWCA won’t be able to change this fundamental lack of will from the main political parties but hopefully we can bring about a real improvement to the way our council deals with the issue.
It will still be largely up to us, as residents, to make sure that we stand up to the selfish, antisocial elements in our midst. But this task is made easier if we get proper support from the authorities that receive our taxes and are supposed to act in the common interest.
Leys Independent, issue 30, November 2005
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