We are fully committed to resolving problems of anti-social behaviour (ASB) and hate crime with your help
Everyone has the right to feel safe and we will work with Plymouth City Council (PCC), the police and other community leaders to make sure that your community remains somewhere that you feel at home
Anti-social behaivour (ASB) is defined as ‘acting in a way that causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more people not of the same household’.
Our approach
We are serious about tackling ASB and have made a public pledge to provide a high-quality ASB service whenever PCH tenants or leaseholders are involved.
Our tenancy agreements set out clearly what we mean by ASB, the standards of behaviour we expect from all tenants and the action we may take if people continue to carry out ASB.
Our teams work in a multi-agency approach with statutory organisations such as Community Connections, Plymouth City Council (including Public Protection, Environmental Health, Social Care and Health) or your local authority, Victim Support and Devon and Cornwall Police to tackle and help prevent further ASB.
We also work with other housing associations to develop best practices across our industry, as well as expert voluntary organisations such as Victim Support, Shelter, Resolve and several charities helping vulnerable members of society.
We also look at early intervention projects and remedies such as mediation, as well as legal approaches where appropriate.
Types of questions we'll initially ask you
- What is the problem?
- How is it affecting you?
- Why is it happening to you?
- Has it happened regularly?
- Are you the only person who is annoyed?
- Is anyone supporting you through this issue?
- Are you being reasonable with your expectations about what we can do?
- What have you done to try and resolve this yourself?
Activities not classed as ASB
- Cooking odours
- Children crying or engaging in summer activities such as playing in communal gardens or in the street
- Young people gathering socially – unless they are swearing and being intimidating to individuals
- Being unable to park outside your home
- Every day living noises – such as washing machines or vacuum cleaners during the day
- One-off parties and celebrations
- Raised voices whilst watching sporting events
- Banging doors
- Heavy footsteps on stairs or bare floors
What you can do
Can you speak to the person causing the nuisance? Do they realise their behaviour is upsetting their neighbours?
Make sure you are calm when you speak to them and think about what you say. Making a list first will help you to remember what in particular annoys you. If you start shouting or are aggressive it is likely to make things worse and more difficult to resolve the matter.
Don’t leave it too long. It’s better to get things sorted out sooner rather than letting them play on your mind.
What we can do
Report ASB to us:
- Contact your local Housing Officer
- Fill out the form below
- Call us on 0808 230 6500. To report a nuisance when we are closed, call our dedicated out of hours service on 0800 0287 377.
Once you have contacted us we will ensure you a timely response and, if appropriate, will offer you a copy of the initially agreed action plan. Within this action plan it will be decided how often you would like to be updated and also your preferred method of contact. Depending on the type and severity of your complaint, in most cases, we will contact the other person(s) involved to explain that we are aware of a problem and attempt to resolve matters quickly.
We will initially try to resolve all issues by discussing the matter with the person(s) causing the nuisance and offering solutions. In more complex cases, and if the issues continue, with your assistance we may be able to take appropriate legal action. If legal proceedings are started, the judge will want to see that every effort has been made to try to solve the problem first. It is therefore essential we consider all reasonable resolutions before we can start legal proceedings.
If we need to take further action we will need you to collect as much evidence as possible to assist us proving a case in court. This may include recording dates and times of the offending behaviour. Video and sound recordings are always very useful in such cases and we can give you details of a mobile phone app you can do this with. Without this information there is very little we can do to resolve the situation for you.
Hate crime is any incident of crime which is motivated by the hatred of someone because of ‘who’ the victim is or ‘what’ the victim appears to be.
Devon and Cornwall Police define hate crime as ‘Any criminal offence which is perceived by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice based on a person's race or perceived race; religion or perceived religion; sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation; disability or perceived disability and any crime motivated by hostility or prejudice against a person who is transgender or perceived to be transgender.’
You can find a list of types of hate crimes on the Devon and Cornwall Police website.
How to report hate crime
To report any incidents of hate crime, report these directly to Devon and Cornwall Police.
- Always call 999 in an emergency or when a crime is taking place.
- To report non-urgent crime or anti-social behaviour or submit information linked with community tensions, call 101 or report via the Devon and Cornwall Police website.
If you would prefer to submit information to the police anonymously, call Crime Stoppers on 0800 555 111 or via their website.
If you report hate crime to us, we will work as a third party and will report the incident to the police with your permission.
Support available
If you, or anyone you know, has been a victim of anti-social behaviour or crime and need some additional support, contact Victim Support.
Victim Support is an independent charity offering free and confidential advice and support to victims of crime and anti-social behaviour. They can be contacted by calling their 24/7 support line number on 0808 16 89 111, their local helpline number between 9am and 6pm on 0300 303 0554, or via Live Chat on their website.
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