Andrew Bennett MP said there were too many loopholes for nuisance neighbours to exploit. He spoke as the first of the government's steps to broaden antisocial behaviour order powers to housing associations came into force on Monday.
Bennett, who is Labour MP for Denton and Reddish in Manchester said: "I'm not certain that what the government is doing is going to work. They need to consolidate housing into large managed blocks. In too many places we are seeing too much fragmentation."
Bennett feared the proliferation of social and private landlords in urban areas like Liverpool meant it had become much harder to control bad behaviour. He said: "The more fragmented the housing, the easier it is for tenants simply to move to another landlord. One or two tenants can cause an area a lot of problems."
Bennett said that the problem would become even worse if the government's calls for an increase in the number of types of landlords – included in the deputy prime minister's July housing statement – went ahead.
As part of the Queen's Speech in November, the government set up an antisocial behaviour unit to be headed up by Louise Casey – currently in charge at the homelessness directorate. Civil servants have also been working on proposals to dock housing benefits from antisocial tenants.
Bennett criticised the government's target of bringing social housing up to a decent standard by 2010, saying targets should apply to private housing as well – otherwise "there's no point".
He was also sceptical of the future for stock transfer if the controversial National Audit Office report comes out with "strong stuff" against government reliance on the transfer of council homes to housing associations as a means of meeting the 2010 decency target.
A spokeswoman for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister said: "The government is keen to ensure that social landlords have the powers to deal swiftly and effectively with the majority of antisocial tenants."
In last month's Queen's Speech, the government announced a raft of measures to crack down on antisocial behaviour which will be included in a new bill.
Source
Housing Today
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