Craig Stirrat

This year’s Scottish Housing Day takes place on 17th September 2025 and aims to encourage a nationwide discussion on how important good neighbours are to wellbeing and living well in our homes.

The good news, according to the current Scottish Household survey report (2023), suggests that across Scotland, the majority of householders (95%) rate their neighbourhood as a good or a very good place to live. A significant percentage report a strong sense of belonging and trust among neighbours…. but what is the scale and impact of bad relationships between neighbours and how is the social rented sector responding?

According to YouGov data from a report for Resolve UK, almost 1 in 10 people experience Anti-social behaviour (ASB) at least once a week (10.9%), with an estimated 1.7 million people experiencing ASB at least once per day, every day (2.5% of UK adults).

A Home Office study report from March 2023 helped to remind us and quantify the individual impacts of Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB). Emotional impacts were found among nearly all participants, with annoyance (for 56% of participants) and anger (for 42%) being the most widespread impacts across ASB types. Fear, loss of confidence, difficulty sleeping and anxiety were also common emotional impacts. While they were less commonly experienced (each by around a quarter of participants), they were described as being more severe and longer lasting.

Therefore, Scottish Housing Day is a timely reminder that we have a duty, as a socially responsible sector, to regularly review and consider if we are doing enough to try and support tenants to ensure they fulfil their tenants’ obligations to “…. not harass or act in an antisocial manner to, or pursue a course of antisocial conduct against, any person in the neighbourhood.”

The Scottish Government Report from the Independent Working Group on Antisocial Behaviour Feb 2025 reveals no surprises as to whom the residents consider are responsible for dealing with antisocial behaviour in homes and the communities they are located in:

“Housing professionals told the Working Group that pressures on other partners due to budget cuts and resourcing issues were having a direct impact on housing and antisocial behaviour teams, with the public contacting them instead of appropriate partners due to perceived lack of response from other agencies.”

So, the growing expectation for the social landlord to take the lead on more effective action on Antisocial behaviour poses not only a risk for the wellbeing of tenants but also a risk to the resilience of the social landlord, as it poses a significant reputational risk if it is perceived the social landlord has failed to act decisively and compassionately.

But is the social rented sector at risk of becoming overwhelmed, ending up not effectively managing expectations by perpetuating a paternalistic attitude when dealing with complaints about ASB which in turn may contribute to dependency amongst some tenants?

When a tenant reports what they consider is unreasonable behaviour from the neighbour(s) these can range from serious harassment or even assault to relatively minor personal disputes. Regardless of the nature – these all have to be investigated and consequently more frontline resource is diverted away from proactive tenancy support and service to create and sustain good communities and places to live.

Given the pressure on social landlord’s resources, is it time for the sector to have a clearer standard of service response (in upholding the landlords responsibility as per the tenancy agreement) to better manage expectations when dealing with neighbour problems?

Perhaps the social rented sector needs to consider learning from the Police Scotland Tasking and Co-ordination framework that includes a system for ranking reports from the public to better manage resources and prioritise responses. This framework aims to improve how the service identifies and escalates threats, harm, and risk, as well as streamline resource allocation… time will tell however if this system is effective in preventing relatively minor problems becoming major criminal issues.

Naturally to go down a route like the Police, where we’d just note relatively minor tenant disputes to concentrate on tackling more serious ASB, we need to manage this change to ensure tenants feel they are listened to or respected, otherwise they may be less likely to take initiative or feel empowered to participate in decisions that affect their housing situation such as resolving minor neighbour issues without involving the landlord. Otherwise, we will end up continuing a cycle of dependency where tenants rely on their landlord for even minor neighbour issues and disagreements.

It was for those very same reasons that I recall that back in 1995, I established in Aberdeen City Council, the second only (the first was by Falkirk Council) ASB and tenant (out of normal hours) helpline team in Scotland to help tenants deal with neighbour problems and set up a partnership with SACRO mediation services to help resolve minor neighbour disputes.

Fast forward 30 years, here in Grampian Housing Association we are aiming to support our tenants and mitigate against reputational risk by aiming to shift from reactive enforcement to proactive empowerment:

    • Appointed a specialist in-house ASB Officer to support frontline officers
    • Producing a revised ASB policy in consultation with tenants which outline how reports are triaged, investigated, and resolved.
    • Proactive communication: Keeping residents informed about actions taken (within legal limits) to resolve the reported ASB which helps build trust – in particular develop a communications campaign focused on educating complainants, victims and witnesses about their rights, what they can do themselves to try and resolve low level disputes, the emotional and practical support (e.g. Victim Support & mediation services) that is available and reporting mechanisms.
    • Use of Digital solutions – encouraging residents to download the Noise App to record any persistent noise nuisance and the installation of mobile CCT in ASB hotspots where tenants live and report it to their Neighbourhood Officer.
    • Partnership working: rebuilding/improving collaboration with police, local authorities, and support services ensuring a joined-up response.
    • Training staff: Equipping frontline teams to handle ASB sensitively and consistently.

We live in increasingly diverse communities, resulting in more common neighbour dispute issues being reported to social landlords such as noise, property boundaries, trees and hedges, parking issues, and anti-social behaviour. 

This year’s Scottish Housing Day theme is therefore an opportunity to collectively renew our commitment to support all our tenants to ensure everyone can peacefully enjoy their homes.