Lockdown led to ‘bad behaviour’
Anti-social incidents more than doubled
REPORTS of anti-social behaviour more than doubled in the Vale during the coronavirus lockdown compared to the same time last year.
Council bosses said the teams were “stretched” in responding to the sharp rise in complaints as residents staying at home were forced to put up with noisy neighbours.
Between April and August, the Vale of Glamorgan council received 2,622 reports of anti-social behaviour – a 166 per cent increase on the 987 reports received over the same period last year.
Mike Ingram, operational manager for housing services, said: “There was obviously a huge impact on community safety issues right throughout [lockdown], and we continue to have some of those issues.”
Council bosses were updating councillors on how the council has responded to the challenges of Covid-19, during a meeting of the homes and safe communities scrutiny committee on September 16.
Mr Ingram said: “The team were more than stretched, I think it’s fair to say.
“They didn’t break. But it was extremely challenging for the community safety team to be able to respond to all of the issues, that all appeared to be happening at the same time.
“Neighbours were unhappy with other neighbours breaching the lockdown conditions, but we also had issues in relation to general antisocial behaviour like barbecues, noise, dogs, and children, that came as a result of the vast majority of the population being in their homes 24 hours a day.”
Over lockdown hotspots of anti-social behaviour have sprung up across the Vale, like at Ogmore-by-Sea which saw a huge beach party and mass brawl in June.
To cover these hotspots, the Vale council has bought five redeployable CCTV cameras, Mr Ingram said.
Councillors on the cabinet will be asked in the next few weeks to spend more money on CCTV cameras.
The scrutiny committee meeting was hampered by technical problems, as at the start echoes were so loud they left councillors indecipherable, while the chairman of the committee could not be clearly heard until 16 minutes into the meeting due to her microphone being too quiet.