Failed government plans to cut back on anti-social behaviour on estates are to be relaunched in the spring in a bid to allay fears they breach human rights, it emerged this week
Home Secretary Jack Straw has succumbed to pressure from local housing authorities and police chiefs over the new powers to combat nuisance neighbours.

Officials are now drawing up new protocols for anti-social behaviour orders to ensure authorities do not fall foul of human rights lawyers.

However, Straw still denies any chance of this happening as "hogwash", and this week attacked the "vested interests" trying to foil his policies.

He is also considering extending the child curfew order for the under 10s, which authorities claim is useless. An extended curfew would cover more problematical teenage groups.

A Home Office action group was launched late last year in response to disappointing numbers of ASBOs, which have barely reached double figures, and the entire absence of curfew orders since they were introduced last April (Housing Today, 9 December 1999).

Experts remain concerned that human rights may be breached if care is not taken when amassing evidence or handling perpetrators.

The new protocols, being drawn up with the Local Government Association and the Association of Chief Police Officers, will disseminate the experience of the dozen landlords who have so far applied ASBOs using new guidance and regional seminars.

In a television interview this week Straw continued to dismiss the concerns as "ludicrous". Such remarks were "an effort to sabotage a very important element in the government's proposals and to sort of harass local authorities and the police from using these orders to protect innocent members of the public," he told LWT's Jonathan Dimbleby programme.

LGA policy officer Jeanette York said the issue was not preventing authorities or police from taking action. She said: "What we have picked up is that there is some concern about how the procedure itself complies with human rights. Rather than all authorities needing to get outside advice on it, the protocols can do it."