Anti-social behaviour

How do you define anti-social behaviour?

Anti-social Behaviour is “Conduct that has caused or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to any person; conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person’s occupation of residential premises or conduct capable of causing housing related nuisance or annoyance to any person”.

We are committed to taking positive action, in partnership with other agencies, to deal with all forms of anti-social behaviour (ASB). We recognise that if ASB is allowed to persist, it can significantly affect quality of life for those affected.

Can you give some examples of ASB?

Examples of ASB include:

• intimidation and harassment
• actual violence against people or property
• using or threatening to use housing as a base to sell drugs, or for other unlawful purposes
• hate behaviour targeting members of identified groups because of their perceived differences 
• the fouling of communal/public areas, graffiti, fly tipping and nuisance vehicles. 

What would you not consider to be ASB?

Some things are not considered to be ASB:

• babies crying or children playing
• smells from cooking
• sounds of normal day to day living, like opening and closing of doors, footsteps, lights being switched on or off and toilet flushes
• one-off parties, such as BBQs and birthday parties if they do not cause an unacceptable disturbance
• putting rubbish out on the wrong day
• clashes of lifestyle, including cultural differences
• parking in the wrong bay
• family disputes.

We will not investigate normal behaviour that happens at unusual times because of different working patterns.