No evictions made by Hillcrest

ONE OF Scotland’s largest housing associations didn’t serve a single antisocial behaviour notice last f inancial year. Hillcrest Housing A ssociation, which has a stock of 5,500 homes, has a tenancy sustainment team that works with residents.

In 2013-14 almost 1,500 referrals were made to the service, which works with tenants on a range of housing issues, including steps to avoid the need for eviction action.

Hillcrest, which offers homes in Dundee, A ngus, Edinburgh and Perthshire, pursued no court action against anti-social tenants over the year and no evictions were carried out as a result of bad behaviour.

Kirsteen Beeching, the body’s housing manager for A ngus, said any complaints against tenants are logged onto a internal system then passed to a housing officer who has 10 working days to investigate.

“If it’s something minor we will generally go and speak to the person being complained about and remind them of their tenancy obligations.

“They will then be either given a verbal or a written warning.

“We also do joint visits with the police and we have a good working relationship with them.

“It tends to be dog fouling and minor noise disputes that come up most often.

“Dog fouling can be very hard to solve unless you actually catchch them doing it.”

Hillcrest endeavourur to keep their investigations in-housese but can pay a fee to tap into the council’scil’s anti-social behaviour team if required.ired.

Mrs Beeching said: “It’s always the last resort that we gotot to eviction.

“In some areas we h ave done closure orders which will give people respite forr a period of time.

“It means the housese is closed up between the policece and the council.

“You need a lot of ev i d e n c e coming from the tenants who have been affected by it and they would eventually have to go to court to give evidence, which isn’t an easy thing to do.”

Kirsteen Beeching, Hillcrest housing manager for Angus.