YOUR recent Comment regarding the problem of dealing with A1 Housing and tenants guilty of crime anti-social behaviour – "perhaps there needs to be a change in the law" – hit the nail on the head.
A1 Housing have the power to evict a sitting tenant who is guilty of using the property as a base for illegal activities or anti-social behaviour by either the tenant or others who may be visiting or staying at the property.
In some cases the visi
tors have nominated the property as a bail address, and the hapless tenant has to cope with being descended upon by individuals who, out of the clutches of the police or the courts for a period, continue to wreak mayhem.
Often the sitting tenant may have been threatened or coerced by the miscreants or allow the property to be abused because of ongoing drug or alcohol problems.
There are certain properties at Prospect estate which have become ghettoised over months, if not years, of this sort of continued activity.
A1 Housing should have the authority to be able to stipulate in the tenant’s contract that addresses should not be used as bail addresses.
The police are doing their best to disrupt crime and anti-social behaviour on A1 Housing’s administered areas, but are taking one step forward and then two steps back because of A1 Housing’s ineptitude.
The audit commissioners spoke of the positive effect the permanent estate caretakers have in tackling crime and anti-social behaviour – no surprises, then, that A1 Housing have now decided, on what is presumably another cost-cutting move, to abandon the role of permanent estate caretakers!
My view is that there needs to be a root and branch clearout at A1 Housing, from senior housing officers upwards, but now many people are beginning to think the unthinkable – dismantle A1 Housing Ltd altogether!
Old prospector
(name and address supplied)
The full article contains 325 words and appears in Worksop Guardian newspaper.
