Let's start sorting this out

Hi All,

You're all aware I don't live in Primrose House any longer, so I don't see what's happening day to day with the kids being antisocial. I have read through what you've said and think we can start pulling together a plan of action.

1. Doors: Could someone get in touch with my Dad on 07764 187719 to explain what needs doing to fix them, including the hand rail. Once you have a quote, please post it per Flat. If someone can then volunteer to collate the money (I will need to pay by transfer) he can come round and fix them.

2. If it's worth having him come and do the other maintenance work at the same time, add £10 per flat. That will get the fence creosoted, the wire at the side of the building for the gas meters fixing, the light-bulbs replacing and a sweep up of the outside. If there's any graffiti to be cleaned from the internal/external doors I'm sure this can be covered too. Please could someone arrange a time and date with him to come round, and I suggest we all pay by end of October.



Ok.. next, I have sent an email asking Sheffield Safer Neighbourhoods Teams to get in touch with us. Again, I will need someone to step forward to take charge of this. Charlie, if you're interested I can pass them your details. So, I've had a similar experience living in London, and the local safer neighbourhoods team came and set up neighbourhood watch. They put up signs and also gave a direct line to their mobile so you can call them down to the area should there be any antisocial behaviour. They will move the kids on and if necessary take their details and pass to the ASBO team in the council who can find out where they live and get in touch with their parents. They have the power to evict them in extreme cases. The other benefit is you can hold your monthly neighbourhood watch meeting in the carpark - so you send a really strong message to any onlookers. They see the whole development stood round the police officer, it's brilliant. I have to be honest it has really really shown the kids that were hanging round the complex I now live in that the residents were taking action and I've not seem them since (we set this up 5mths ago).

Until someone champions this from Primrose House, I will post emails I get from the safer neighbourhoods team on here but I can't committ to keeping up with this. So I've made the initial contact and will refer them to your posts on the forum should they want more detail around what's going on.

Finally, when I was living there, there were some kids hanging around whom I suspected came from the SYHA block. So I contacted SYHA via this link..

As those flats are 24/7 supervised, the warden emailed back and was really supportive. You can get in touch by going to

http://www.syha.co.uk/ResidentInformation/asb/reportingasb.htm
http://www.syha.co.uk/ResidentInformation/whocontact/

I think this forum is working really well and I'm so pleased its becoming a useful tool for you all to connect and make our flats a better place to be!

Finally - reading material should you you wish to get more insight into how Sheffield Council can tackle these problems.

Ref: http://www.sheffieldfirstforsafety.net/welcome/anti-social-behaviour

Anti-Social Behaviour
The number of court-ordered sanctions including evictions, Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and prosecutions are not measures of how well a problem is being tackled.

What are we tackling?
Nuisance neighbours
‘Street’ nuisance including:
youth nuisance
criminal damage
environmental problems
disorder caused by alcohol sales and misuse
Arson
Nuisance on public transport
The problems associated with street prostitution

How we tackle it.

Effective use of all relevant powers within the city centre to curb the effects of alcohol-related nuisance.
Establish Sheffield Safer Neighbourhood Areas.

Education and re-assurance
Use of parenting courses to support better parenting
Work with licensed premises to alert managers and staff to their responsibilities
Promotional campaigns and group-work with young people educating them to the dangers of fire-setting and making hoax calls

Prevention/Diversion
Implementation of the city’s Youth Activities Strategy
Use of the ‘Positive Activities for young People’ programme during times of high risk of youth nuisance e.g. summer holidays
Fast removal of abandoned cars, litter an graffiti
Erect physical barriers to deter poor behaviour in communities and protect green spaces
Deliver the programmes to support street prostitutes into leaving this work
Implement the ‘prevent and deter’ strand of the Prolific and Other Priority Offenders Strategy aimed at those young people ‘at risk’ of offending

Enforcement
Use of Anti-Social Behaviour Act Section 30 measures (the Dispersal Orders)
Appropriate use of Acceptable Behaviour Contracts (ABCs), Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, injunctions and possession orders
Appropriate use of the Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs)
Effective use of powers available under the new Licensing Act

Re-engagement
Supporting tenants at risk of eviction or who have been evicted to change their behaviour, offering probationary tenancies after proven changes

Sorry Simon, I have only just seen these messages. I think participants in a thread get notification emails from the other threads but not from new ones. This all sounds like a really good idea.

Feel free to pass my details on to the Sheffield Safer Neighbourhoods Teams, I will send my contact details to you in a private message in a second.

I'll reply about the doors and bannister in the current issues thread.

Thanks again though!