Wednesday night was the regular meeting of Bury Council’s Executive Committee which I sit on as one of the two Opposition Group Leaders.
This week saw a very short agenda:
Anti-Social Behavioral Policy for use by 6 Town Housing
This saw the adaptation of Bury’s existing anti-social behavior policy, for use by “6 Town Housing” (the agency that looks after the borough’s council housing). I know 6 Town Housing already have a very active anti-social behavior unit, and I’m sure this extended policy will help them in their work.
Establishment of a Home Improvement Agency
By accepting this report the council established a “Home Improvement Agency” service to carry out all adaptations and work to houses for people in need (e.g. adaptations for disabled people, and the elderly etc). Currently work for council houses is carried out by a different agency for people in private homes.
Secondly, the report agreed to appoint 6 Town Housing as the agency to undertake this service. This does seem sensible, as they know the area well and are already doing much of the work. Assurances were sought that this represented best value for money and also on the quality assurances in the contract.
Customer Relations Management
The Executive Committee received an update on the implementation of the customer relations management system and how this is progressing. I raised a concern about whether the design of the system was too “telephone orientated”, given the amount of services in general that people now access online. I also asked about the reduction in paper useage by the authority as a result of “paperless office” initiatives.
Any questions please don’t hesitate to ask!
Tim
Re adoption of the anti-social behaviour policy. At present it seems that you need to know name.address etc of the people causing antisocial behaviour or nothing is done about it whne reported to Six Towns Housing. On te Plefield estae we are plagued by mini bike riders most weekends and daily during holidays, but despite referral to the police nothing seems to change. It is not possible to know the names of most of the people causing antisocila behaviour, just that there are hordes of children and yourth roaming around Polefield Hall Road, Polefield Circle form all areas of the estate, and especially form a certain few house on the circle and Polefield Hall Road, where They all seem to congregate. It is not possible to keep a diary of occurrences, otherwise you would be contantly writing. It seems that parents do not care what these children/youths are doing (ages form 3-19) as long as it is not disturbing them. At Christmas a gang of about 12 10-18 year olds was jumping on cars on Polefield Hall road but after calling the police, the police did not arrive form 3 hours. There is no pont reporting this to Six Town HBousing as I have no names or addresses to give. Therefore this policy is not working. There needs to be something more, of a quicker reaction to help residents who just want to live in a peacful, vandal free area.
Thanks for your comments Angela. I’m sure you will appreciate this is a very difficult issue to get right. The main thing that would probably help in your area is simply a higher police presence - particularly with the quadbiking issue? I will raise it with our Ward police team.
Tim