Fly tipping, dog fouling and harassment among more than 300 incidents probed by housing bosses in Hebburn

A new policy to combat the issue in the borough was adopted in January.

Alex Hoole, community safety and enforcement manager at South Tyneside Homes, noted there were a total of 327 active anti-social behaviour cases recorded at the end of 2021/22.

She said: “I’ve just done the end of year figures for the whole borough, which is a decrease on the year before.

“Not every inquiry that comes into us is then a case, some cases will have a complainant assigned to them.

“Other times things will come in either via members or via online where there are no complainant details, so sometimes the number of reports that come in will differ to the number of cases with a complainant.”

In Hebburn, in the last financial year, there were a total of 111 cases closed, with a success rate of 96.4% for residents.

There were also 88 cases opened, 58 of which had an individual complainant assigned to them.

Hoole told Monday’s (April 11) meeting of the Hebburn Community Area Forum (CAF), at Hebburn Central, that South Tyneside Homes staff had a 100% success rate in responding to cases within the targeted time scales, although these will change with the new antisocial behaviour policy.

She said: “Where the complainant is assigned to them we also have a target of some of the response times, depending on the category of the case, they need to respond within one, three or five days.

“All the response times were 100% for them.”

Examples of potential anti-social behaviour incidents given included fly tipping, dog fouling, intimidation and harassment, persistent extreme noise and “unreasonable actions” linked to drug and alcohol abuse incidents.

Hoole added: “Our service’s aim is not to just take enforcement action, it’s to change behaviour, and sustain tenancies.

“What we’re trying to do with somebody is educate them that their behaviour is causing an impact on somebody else and get them to stop.”