Swansea Council housing officers would be able to issue legal notices to tenants causing persistent trouble, and go to court to shut homes taken over by drug dealers, under plans going to cabinet next Thursday.
The powers were adopted by the council in March 2018 but its housing service “has not embedded” them in day-to-day work and has relied on civil injunctions instead, the council admits. City centre management has stuck to warnings and fixed penalty notices.
The council says the new tools will support the Clear, Hold, Build operation “and other priority areas”. South Wales Police already uses the powers and “supports greater Council use” of them, it adds.
‘Long overdue for the people who live in Dyfatty’
Police launched the operation in Dyfatty in March with a year-long crackdown on the gangs around High Street North and the tower blocks. Chief Superintendent Stephen Jones said at the launch that residents had lived with organised crime for years “despite having no connection to it themselves”.
He said: “This work is long overdue for the people who live in Dyfatty.”
By April, officers had made 28 arrests, executed five drugs warrants and issued four community protection warning notices to repeat offenders with no reason to be in the area, the same tool the council now wants in its housing officers’ hands. Police said the next phase, Hold, would be led by the council.
Acting Chief Inspector Andrew Hedley said the police presence was “making a real difference” and that the force was “committed to building on this progress to ensure residents feel safe and supported”. He added: “This is only the beginning.”
Warnings first, then notices, then the courts
The council’s plan is a three-step ladder. A Community Protection Warning is a formal written warning. If that is ignored, a Community Protection Notice can order someone to stop a behaviour, or do something to put it right, and breaching one is a criminal offence.
The notices “can include positive requirements aimed at underlying causes” of someone’s behaviour, the council says, and city centre staff would only use them “where engagement, support, warnings and Fixed Penalty Notices have not achieved compliance”.
At the top of the ladder are Closure Orders, which the council says will be considered “only where necessary and proportionate in serious nuisance, criminality, exploitation or suspected cuckooing cases”.
Cuckooing is where criminals take over a vulnerable person’s home to deal from it. When three men were jailed last year for forcing their way into a woman’s home in Waun Wen, Detective Inspector Richard George said gangs “often target people who are lonely, isolated, or have addiction issues”, using “high levels of violence and intimidation” to take over their homes.
Partial Closure Orders, the council says, “may restrict harmful individuals without necessarily excluding the tenant”, so the people exploiting a home can be barred from it while the tenant stays.
Only trained officers, and no public consultation
Only trained and authorised officers in the housing service’s Community Liaison Team would use the powers, the council says, with legal services involved in every closure application, and training and oversight met from existing budgets.
There has been no public consultation, because the council says the decision “concerns operational use and governance of existing statutory powers”. Its own risk list includes “inconsistent or disproportionate use, insufficient evidence, legal challenge” and “adverse impact on vulnerable people”, to be managed through training, case recording and legal oversight.
The council is blunt about the alternative. Without the powers, it says, “services will have fewer options for early graduated intervention and disrupting serious nuisance or exploitation”.
‘It must be led by the people who live and work here’
Cabinet last month extended Swansea’s street rules to Dyfatty and the beachfront under a new three-year Public Spaces Protection Order. In June empty High Street shops reopened as Dyfatty Junction, when police put crime in the area down 11.5% and anti-social behaviour down 63.2% in four months.
Cllr Andrea Harrington, who chairs the Public Services Board running the Building a Better Dyfatty programme, said in June that partners had spent months in Dyfatty “listening, learning and understanding what people want to see”. “If we are serious about change, it must be led by the people who live and work here,” she said.
Council leader Rob Stewart said then: “We’re committed to working alongside people to build something that delivers real, lasting change.” Cabinet meets at 11am on Thursday 15 October.
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