October 7, 2010 5.20 pm This story is over 168 months old

City Council out of hours service to target anti-social behaviour

Law & order: The City Council has set out to enforce some of its powers to tackle anti-social behaviour in Lincoln.

The City of Lincoln Council is looking into creating a new out of hours service to tackle the increasing amount of anti-social behaviour in the city.

Details of the service are very sketchy at the moment, but the basics were laid out in the council’s Strategic Plan for 2010 to 2015.

The plans include creating a single team of officers to deal with noise nuisance, littering, dog fouling, abandoned cars, graffiti, fly tipping, and alcohol-related issues.

At the moment, all these problems are dealt with by individual teams during office hours, and there is no centralised action scheme.

The new centralised service would have teams of uniformed officers (pictured) to respond to residents’ complaints out of office hours and at weekends as well.

The officers would deal with a range of low-level activity either using the enforcement powers open to them, or by signposting or referring issues.

“Bringing those people together could result in a more efficient service,” said the City Council’s Deputy Leader Marc Jones.

It is unknown at this stage whether merging the various departments implied in this strategic plan would result in loss of jobs at the council.

“In talking to our residents, one of the most important issues to them is anti-social behaviour and public disorder.”

The council says the new measures are needed, because anti-social issues are persistent in Lincoln, although these activities are not always criminal in nature.

Lincolnshire Police also recognised that anti-social behaviour is a big problem in Lincoln, after a national report criticised that police are slow to tackle the issue.

Strategic Plan: Public Order Section [PDF]