Why Your Complaint Is Not Being Acted Upon
We will always try to assist where possible to tackle
anti-social behaviour but sometimes it is not always possible for
us to accept a complaint of anti-social behaviour or bring an
existing case to a satisfactory conclusion. There may be a variety
of reasons for this.
Malicious complaints or complaints motivated by prejudice or
discrimination
We will not accept cases of anti-social behaviour where the
complainant clearly bases their complaint on malicious rumour, or
on their own prejudices. This could be, for example, a complaint
motivated by a hatred of someone’s race, ethnicity, gender,
sexuality or so on. In these cases you as the complainant may be
guilty of committing a hate crime and action can be taken against
you.
The complaint is a one-off incident
Some complaints are made on a one-off incident and although we
can log this it is often best resolved by talking to your neighbour
yourself. However, if the anti-social behaviour is serious or
criminal it needs to be reported to the police.
The complaint is because of a clash of lifestyles
People do live different lives and at times it is reasonable to
expect that they may clash. Some examples of this may be children
playing or crying, people doing DIY and even cooking smells.
Whilst we can accept that this can cause nuisance and annoyance
the best way to resolve these issues are by talking to your
neighbours. We are happy to advise whether your complaint can be
dealt with - and in cases where it may be a clash of lifestyles we
could support you in drawing up a Good Neighbour Pledge with your
neighbour that gives consideration to people’s needs in your local
community and that everyone agrees to.
The complainant does not help us
If we are going to deal with your complaint we need to you
provide evidence to us – often we will ask you to complete diary
sheets. We accept this can be time consuming and tedious but in
order to progress the case it is necessary.
If there is no evidence to suggest that the anti-social
behaviour is ongoing and you do not inform us otherwise we may
not be able to take further action. Similarly, if you ask that
the perpetrator is not challenged regarding their behaviour, it is
unlikely that any further action will be taken.
Closing a case
Cases may be closed without being resolved for other reasons if
we have exhausted all avenues and resources and still cannot take
any further action against the perpetrator. It may be that you are
the only complainant and without any other witnesses there is often
little that we can do through the court.
You will be notified if we feel that the case has to be closed.
If you disagree with this decision you can of course appeal against
this decision. As the staff of the SaferPeterborough partnership
team are employed by Peterborough City Council this should be done
through the city council’s complaints procedure.