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Case studies of communities tackling anti-social behaviour

On 9th February 2010, Communities Secretary, John Denham called for community champions to challenge asb in their neighbourhoods.

Two people central to this new approach are Carole McCulloch from Nottingham and Don Smith from Bristol.

Carole has got young people themselves challenging anti-social behaviour and learning they have the power to get things done. Don has set up a local office staffed with volunteers to work towards making the area feel safer.

Carole McCulloch

Carole has been a community activist for many years, and now works for the Aspley and Bells Lane Partnership helping to run everything from youth clubs for teenagers to tea dances for the elderly. One of her latest innovations is to get young people themselves involved in challenging anti-social behaviour. School children go out spotting problems in their neighbourhood - whether smashed windows; litter and graffiti; or fly tipping - and then write letters to the authorities to demand action. It teaches the children a sense of ownership, responsibility and pride in their community and shows that they do have the power to get things done.

The young people realised that the estate wasn’t as bad as they had perceived it to be and the services enjoyed working with the young people. Through the young people’s perspective they highlighted issues and solutions services hadn’t even thought of. Young people identified untidy gardens as part of the walkabout and these residents received letters from NCH Housing Patch Manager. As a result these gardens have been tidied by the residents. This does not always happen on adult walkabouts. Receiving a letter from a young person, who lives on the estate, certainly made an impact to residents who received them.

Don Smith

Don has been an active member of his community in South Bristol for over 20 years. He was involved in setting up the Withywood Forum, South Bristol Community Watch and the Highridge Forum. All three organisations were focussed on improving their local communities and tackling crime and anti-social behaviour in partnership with the police, council and other agencies.

More recently Don attended the Community Crime Fighters conference and was really buoyed up by the whole experience and started thinking about what else he could do. He asked for help from his Safer Bristol Community Safety Officer (CSO) and decided he wanted to open a local office staffed by volunteers to work towards making the area feel safer, give people confidence to report and generally be a hub of events and activities. In July, HBH Community Action officially opened its doors.

The HBH office is open to residents 3 days a week and Don and other volunteers support local residents to report anti-social behaviour, fly-tipping, dog fouling, graffiti etc. and to challenge the police and the council when they think that there is something more they could be doing. Don has also nominated several areas of his community for Community Payback projects and this has helped to reduce anti-social behaviour by removing overgrown bushes, dumped rubbish and graffiti to make the areas feel safer and encourage more residents to use them.

Contact Carole and Don through Communities and Local Government and find out more about what you can do in your area.

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