Anti-social behaviour

Together with a range of community safety partners the council continues to tackle all aspects of anti-social behaviour across South Lanarkshire. We have outlined below how our services and community safety partners have been doing this throughout last year.

Local Housing offices

As the first point of call for many tenants experiencing anti-social behaviour our Housing Officers received 1,120 cases in 2020/21 and closed 93.6% of them within the 20 day target. The top three issues reported to our local offices were:

• ASB noise/music
• Nuisance behaviour
• Threatening behaviour

Anti-social Investigation Team

Our specialist team received 903 cases across all tenures including South Lanarkshire Council tenancies, owner occupied properties and private lets and worked closely with other council services and community safety partners to resolve more complex cases.  The team resolved 97.7% of cases within the 60 day target.  The top three issues reported were Neighbour disputes,  Threatening & Abusive Behaviour and Excess Noise.

A number of enforcement actions were taken against all offenders as a result of this work, as detailed on our enforcement page.

Community Warden Service

Community Wardens reported and resolved 9055 incidents during 2020/21, including 1,452 incidents of illegal dumping or fly-tipping, 290 potential or actual incidents of fire  hazards or fire raising, 446 joint working instances of potential or actual criminality and over 5,000 street or estate patrols carried out.

Mediation Service

Through encouraging neighbours and families to talk to one another to resolve their issues, our fully accredited Mediation serviced received 178 referrals for mediation and mediated in a range of issues including boundary disputes, noise disputes and young people at risk of becoming homeless.

Community Safety HUBs

The partnership approach to tackling anti-social behaviour continues through the Community Safety HUB meetings which take place across South Lanarkshire on a weekly basis.

The HUB’s are attended by representatives from Police Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and Housing and Technical Resources. Each week reports of anti-social behaviour are reviewed and actions are agreed by partners to tackle this. There is a focus from all partners to source a sustained outcome to prevent issues from either spreading or re-occurring. The meetings review all incidents regardless of housing tenure and identify trends and hotspots of anti-social behaviour within each area. Plans on how these hotspots will be monitored are agreed by those in attendance and action is taken to reduce the disruption that this type of behaviour can cause.

The council is working with partners to further develop these meetings, including the potential expansion of the organisations and services represented.

Problem Solving Groups

Housing and Technical Resources administer Problem Solving Group meetings across the South Lanarkshire area on a quarterly basis. These meetings review wider issues in relation to anti-social behaviour and community safety.

There are currently six Problem Solving Group’s established in South Lanarkshire. These cover East Kilbride, Rutherglen and Cambuslang, Hamilton, Larkhall, Blantyre and the wider Clydesdale area. These meetings are attended by senior officers from a variety of council services, including Housing and Technical Resources, Community Enterprise Resources, Education Resources, the South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership, Police Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, and local third sector organisations.

A range of issues are discussed and intelligence is provided from all partners as well as the Community Safety HUBs. The groups also feed into the Anti-Social Behaviour Strategic Implementation Group.

some examples of issues discussed and resolved over the last year relate to the ongoing global pandemic, restrictions and the resulting effect on anti-social behaviour. – change the examples to supporting Police Scotland to break up unauthorised mass gatherings in Chatelherault Country Park and other parks across the South Lanarkshire Area; youth disorder in Larkhall area; quad bike related anti-social behaviour in Coalburn and wider Clydesdale area as well as fire raising in wooded areas throughout the area.

The Problem Solving Group’s also have access to annual Community Safety Partnership funding for specific projects which have been identified as part of a combined response. The case study below highlights some of the good work achieved from just one of the 18 projects delivered over the last year.

Case study - Partnership Project

Increased complaints of noise and anti-social behaviour from residential properties due to lockdown restrictions – Increased instances of youth disorder and associated fire raising and vandalism within wooded areas.

All 6 Local Problem Solving Groups identified these issues as their top 2 emerging issues of concern.  Funding was received from the Community Safety Partnership that allowed dedicated additional resources from Police Scotland and the Community Wardens to carry out a targeted 12 week peak time initiative consisting of weekend evening visits to addresses identified by the Community Safety Hub as repeat call locations.  Additionally officers carried out patrols to areas identified by the Hub and local PSG as hotspot locations for youth disorder and fire raising, such as wooded areas, nature trails, skateparks and specific repeat call areas.

This successful initiative saw an additional: 1508 visits carried out to problematic addresses; 469 warnings issued and 12 groups dispersed; 256 ongoing incidents disrupted including street disorder, assaults, vandalism, breaches of ASBO and breaches of Covid-19 regulations.  In addition, 15 abandoned properties were identified and passed to relevant services for action and serious potential criminality was averted by the recovery of weapons, seizure of controlled drugs and recovery of cash.

Crucially officers from across all organisations involved were also able to complete reassurance visits to vulnerable residents to offer support and signpost them to other services that could assist.  The Community Warden CCTV vehicles also ensured a high visibility presence offering public reassurance.  The collaborative approach achieved marked success with re-occurrences dropping by 63.86% due to effective partnership working.

Are you a victim of anti-social behaviour in South Lanarkshire?

To report anti-social behaviour please see our Who to contact for help page