Our Housing team at Dover District Council is committed to ensuring tenants feel safe and secure in their homes. This means not only maintaining properties to a high standard but also supporting communities to be free from antisocial behaviour (ASB) and Hate Incidents.
ASB can have a serious impact on health, wellbeing, and overall quality of life. To address this, our dedicated Tenancy Support team works closely with the Council’s Community Safety Team and Kent Police to tackle ASB and related issues in Council-owned housing across the Dover District.
Our goal is to reduce community tensions caused by ASB, crime, and nuisance, so you can enjoy living in your home without stress or fear.
Please note: while we aim to tackle ASB, we are not an emergency service. Crimes such as harassment, intimidation, violence, drug activity, hate crime, or any other illegal activity must be reported to Kent Police first.
Housing’s role is to work with partner agencies to build safer communities and by using the enforcement powers available to us.
What is ASB?
The definition of ASB which is used in Section 2 of the Antisocial Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 : Which states Antisocial behaviour means –
(a) Conduct that has caused or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm or distress to any person.
(b) Conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person’s occupation of residential premises, or
(c) Conduct capable of causing housing-related nuisance or annoyance to any person.
Some examples of behaviour that would be treated as ASB include but are not limited to:
- Intimidation and harassment
- The fouling of public areas, graffiti, fly tipping and nuisance vehicles
- Actual violence against people or property
- Hate behaviour that targets members of identified groups because of their perceived difference e.g. racial harassment.
- Using or threatening to use housing accommodation to manufacture, supply or sell drugs, or for other unlawful purposes.
- Excessive noise nuisance.
What isn't ASB?
Below are examples of issues which may upset or disturb people and which are unlikely to be dealt with as ASB are:
- Babies crying
- Children playing (including balls games- unless they are being played in a communal area and causing a nuisance)
- Cooking smells
- Doors and drawers being shut
- Dishwashers, hoovers, tumble dryers, washing machines and or other household appliances; Dropping of objects/moving of furniture
- General talking
- Heavy footfalls (people walking on floors or upstairs)
- Flushing toilets and running water
- Lights switches being turned on and off
- Loud talking or laughing
- One-off or isolated incidents e.g. a party or an argument or altercation
- People carrying out DIY jobs at reasonable hours of the day
- Families arguing and shouting between themselves (unless you suspect there is domestic abuse taking place in which case this should be reported to the police)
- Sexual noises
- Shift workers leaving home
- Slamming doors
- Toilet flushes
- Where there is no breach in the tenancy ie: people staring or being inconsiderate.
- Noise transference due to poor sound insulation.
This list may, from time to time include other low level nuisance issues.
ASB response times
We prioritise our response to each reported case of ASB including hate incidents based on the severity of the ASB and the impact to the reporter and their household. There are three categories which are:
Category A - we will respond to the reporter in 2 working days
These are:
- Serious and violent incidents involving a person or a property
- Intimidation and / or harassment
- Hate incidents that target members of identified groups because of their perceived difference or characteristics
Category B - we will respond to the reporter in 4 working days
These are:
- Using or threatening to use housing accommodation to manufacture, supply or sell drugs or for other unlawful purposes.
- Threatening or abusive behaviour.
- Excessive noise nuisance.
Category C - we will respond to the reporter in 10 working days
These are:
- The fouling of public areas, graffiti (unless it is racist or obscene) fly tipping, nuisance vehicles
- Excessively untidy gardens
- Noisy animals
Download our ASB Incident diary (to record the date and time of any incident to use as evidence if necessary)
Please see our Antisocial Behaviour Policy.