New anti-social behaviour strategy in the pipeline

CLARE County Council is in the process of drawing up a new anti-social behaviour strategy to apply to its social housing policy.
At this week’s meeting of the housing, social and cultural services SPC, housing officer, Fiona Mooney outlined the basis of the new draft strategy to members. She explained the council has had a strategy in place since October 2005 and the new revised strategy, which is currently in preparation, applies to the expanded range of housing, in keeping with the shift in social housing policy nationally. The deadline for the adoption of the new strategy is November 30.
The strategy will apply to all dwellings let by the housing authority, the rental accommodation scheme (RAS), dwellings let under social leasing arrangements, tenant purchasers or incremental purchasers and Traveller sites.
The intention of the strategy is to prevent and reduce anti-social behaviour, to co-ordinate services to prevent and reduce anti-social behaviour, to promote co-operation with the gardaí and other agencies and to promote good estate management.
Ms Mooney said the new strategy should be as understandable to the public as possible, should include a complaints procedure, should highlight what initiatives the council will implement to prevent and reduce anti-social behaviour and should outline what education and research the council will carry out to prevent and reduce anti-social behaviour.
In drawing up the new strategy, she explained, the council has considered the strengths and weaknesses of the existing policy and consulted with relevant bodies, as well as asking these bodies for their ideas, views, comments and suggestions. Since the first week of September, the council has collated the submissions received with a view to considering them in preparing the draft strategy.
Among the comments received from this preliminary consultation on the new strategy was the need for quick re-occupation of empty houses, stricter enforcement of tenancy agreements, proactive complaints investigation, quicker enforcement proceedings, outlining the strategy clearly on the council’s web page, developing responses to family feuding and referring to littering and dumping.
To date, the joint policing committees in Kilkee, Shannon and the county committee have been consulted on the new strategy, as have the gardaí, the HSE, Kilkee Town Council, Shannon Town Council, the Local Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee, ClareCare, voluntary housing bodies, residents’ associations and Clare Community Forum.
The next step in preparing the plan will be to finalise the first draft, put the draft plan out to public consultation, present the results of that consultation to the SPC in November, along with a final draft for consideration and finally send this draft to full council for consideration before the end of the year.
Councillor Gerry Flynn said the involvement of other agencies in the council’s anti-social strategy would be crucial, as would the support of communities.
Chairperson of the committee, Councillor Patricia McCarthy said the enforcement of tenancy agreements is the most important aspect in dealing with anti-social behaviour.
“It must be made clear that there will be enforcement of tenancy agreements from the start. The vast majority of local authority tenants are good tenants but a small minority can ruin an area,” she commented.