Residents suffering from noise nuisance have an improved service to help them.
Leeds City Council and West Yorkshire Police have combined their resources to provide an integrated service across the city to tackle noise nuisance and low level anti-social behaviour.
The new noise nuisance team will incorporate resources from Leeds Anti-Social Behaviour Team (LASBT), LeedsWatch Security Service and West Yorkshire Police, and include a 24 hour telephone response capability. Two mobile marked vehicles will also operate Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights from 6pm to 4am, with a reduced service being offered from Monday to Thursday, where one vehicle will be available.
Any residents suffering from excessive and/or intrusive noise problems can get in touch with the noise nuisance service on (0113) 395 0143. From Friday to Sunday, when calls for service are at their highest, Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) will work alongside their colleagues from the anti-social behaviour response team to deal with noise related incidents.
Callers will be given advice and assistance with their problem. Where calls require a visit, vans will be dispatched through the Leeds Watch control room and sent through to the response vehicles, which are equipped with laptops to enable calls to be prioritised to ensure residents are responded to appropriately and efficiently. Where a visit is required to the problem areas, the response officers will seek to address problems with noise and if necessary issue appropriate advice or notices.
Households subject to repeated reports will be passed through to LASBT’s daytime team for further investigation and could find themselves subject to enforcement action under either the Environmental Protection Act or further anti-social behaviour legislation.
Councillor Peter Gruen, chair of Safer Leeds said:
“We recognise that noise nuisance is a very real issue across the city and causes significant distress for neighbours. With this in mind, we have completed a review with partners to see how the combatting of anti-social behaviour in Leeds can be improved.
“With summer traditionally offering the most problems regarding noise nuisance, this is the perfect time to launch our new enhanced service, which will include improvements to how we respond to calls in our control room and again the deployment of two mobile vehicles that will deal with cases across the city.”
Superintendent Sam Millar, West Yorkshire Police said:
“There is a very strong and effective community safety partnership in the Leeds district and it is fundamentally important that we work together to tackle and deal with anti-social behaviour which ruins communities and life for so many residents.
“Tackling anti-social behaviour, whatever form it takes, is a key priority for the police and for our partnership and we will play our part in delivering the right service for the city.”
