Social animal

Breakin’ news

In an effort to boost sales of household insurance no doubt, Endsleigh Insurance has named the UK cities with the highest rates of household theft. Residents in Leeds are the most likely to suffer a break-in, with the city’s number of household theft claims being almost twice the national average. The place homes were the least likely to be burgled was Edinburgh, where claims were 56% less than the national average. And which city had the highest number of accidental damage claims? Stand up the cack-handed citizens of Plymouth.

Trouble and strife

Liberal Democrat housing spokesman Ed Davey was keen to tell the audience at Housing Today’s Big Debate event last Thursday that he stands up to antisocial behaviour … and so does his wife-to-be.

As a housing association lawyer who works on antisocial behaviour cases, the approach she generally favours, Davey said, is a good old-fashioned telling off for parents and tearaway children alike. So who said politicians were out of touch with reality?

Showing a second face

Also at the Big Debate event, Tory housing spokesman John Hayes came out with what seem surprising sentiments for the party that gave us Thatcherism. Hayes said:

“You have to look at the type of thing that drives antisocial behaviour. In a greedy, self-interested, materialistic society perhaps these are the types of things we have to look at.” Presumably, we can expect a Tory government to get tough on investment bankers and the like, then.

Here’s looking at you

Next time your tenants report suspected prowlers in the bushes, make sure it’s not your own antisocial behaviour team. Following Housing Today’s report into housing associations that use undercover surveillance methods to gather evidence of antisocial behaviour (HT 12 November, page 27), news reaches Social Animal that covert consultant Expert Investigations has been camped out for five days in the Coventry area peeking on people for Whitefriars Housing. So if you’re behaving badly, you’d better make sure you don’t get sent to Coventry.

When the chips are downmarket

The chair of the Business and Visitor Network in the North-eastern village of Corbridge clearly has a chip on her shoulder about social housing tenants.

Kay Allison-Cooke reacted with horror when a fish-and-chip van set up stall in the genteel hamlet. In a letter circulated to locals, she suggested 90% of the van’s customers lived in council housing and called for the vehicle to be moved from the market place.

“What next?” exclaimed an outraged Allison-Cooke. “Caravans? Gypsies? Car-boot sales?”