Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

NEIGHBOURS FROM HELL

I filled in a confidential online MP survey recently about the most common issue that people visit me about in my surgeries. It varies of course, I could have said housing or benefits issues, and they are certainly popular, but after some consultation with my staff, I plumped for neighbours from hell.

It is not that they are the most widespread, but because they are the most difficult to solve, they come back again and again and take up lots of time.

Just what do you do if the person living next door to you is utterly unreasonable: loud music, loud nocturnal comings and goings, dogs barking, scrap metal all over the garden, kids running riot, verbal abuse and threats, stone throwing….the list goes on. What can you do?The police hate cases like this and they tend to take a six of one and half dozen of the other type approach. It is hard for them to intervene meaningfully without clear evidence. Local authorities now have extensive powers but in my experience use them very reluctantly. They have to be our under real pressure to send out the gear to measure noise levels and only prosecute in the rarest of circumstances. I am sure the Anti Social Unit at Plymouth Council is full of hard working people, but I have yet to see them do anything useful to stop one of these situations. If the offender is a tenant, say of a housing association, they have the power to remove them but almost never take sufficiently robust action. After scores of cases that have come my way over the year, I can only think of a handful of successful interventions. Sadly, even mediation rarely achieves anything.
And yet living next door to an utterly unreasonable person can completely ruin your life. I have met plenty of people who have become obsessed by their neighbours – perhaps understandably.
I do not think we need more law, just a greater willingness on the part of the authorities to use the power that they already have. Often, the only way to get them to act is by publicising the nuisance in the local media.It is time councils and landlords took this nuisance much more seriously. Case conferences between the various agencies including police should be called at an early stage and robust plans put in place to catch and prosecute these anti-social neighbours.

posted by Nigel on Friday, July 20, 2007