Ombudsman criticises London borough for failure to use powers to tackle anti-social behaviour

The complainant claimed that the behaviour included persistent screaming and shouting at unsociable hours, threats, odours coming from the property, and possible drug abuse. He said he felt unsafe in his own home and unable to host visitors.

The resident had bought his property in 2024 and immediately contacted the council’s ASB team to report being disturbed by the behaviour of the resident of a neighbouring flat through the day and night.

Two months later he wrote to the council again, citing several reports about the neighbour’s behaviour which had not seen any action to date.

In another report, the resident added that there were also foul odours coming from the offending property, and that the neighbour was improperly disposing of rubbish inside the building.

At this point, the resident threatened legal action against the council if he continued to receive no response.

The following month, he wrote to Enfield to request an ASB case review and received an apology for the delay in responding and reassurance that a housing officer was investigating the reports of the behaviour.

In early 2025, the resident reported ongoing screaming, swearing and threats in the early hours of the morning and expressed frustration at the lack of intervention by the council. He then reported the issue to the Ombudsman.

The Ombudsman found that Enfield had referred both the initial complaint and subsequent complaints to the housing officer, who then visited the neighbour and arranged another visit the following month, although there are no records to show if this took place.

Over the following months, the ASB officer at Enfield sent repeated messages to the housing officer for an update whenever the resident contacted her, but did not receive a response.

This remained the case until June 2025, at which point the chronology ended.

While ASB guidance is not mandatory for councils, the Ombudsman believed that the resident’s repeated concern for his safety merited Enfield carrying out a risk assessment as part of its response to his allegations, irrespective of any other decision it made.

There was no indication the council gave any thought to this, it said.

Secondly, the Ombudsman was critical of the council’s lack of response to the resident’s request for an ASB case review.

It said that from the resident’s comments, it appeared likely he met the local case review threshold (which is that a person has made three reports within six months), and this meant the council had a statutory duty to carry out the review.

Again though, it did nothing.

Both of these failures amounted to fault in the eyes of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

The LGSCO also said that Enfield had failed to check whether the complainant was vulnerable or at risk.

In response to the Ombudsman’s findings, Enfield Council has agreed to carry out the following actions within one month of the date of the report:

• write a formal letter of apology explaining what went wrong with this case, and to recognise the frustration, distress and uncertainty this caused him.
• offer to pay the complainant £500 to acknowledge the impact on him of what went wrong;
• open an investigation into his reports of anti-social behaviour.
• initiate an ASB case review.

Julie Odams, LGSCO Chief Executive, said: “Everyone deserves to feel safe in their own home. When someone repeatedly reports feeling threatened by a neighbour's behaviour, they should be confident their council will take their concerns seriously and use its powers to help.

“Councils have a range of powers available to them and should consider which is most appropriate when residents report problems. When someone says they feel unsafe, assessing their vulnerability should be a starting point — not an afterthought.

“This is not the first time we have found this council failing to use its powers to tackle anti-social behaviour. We are concerned this points to a wider problem with how it runs this service and the effectiveness of local oversight. I welcome that the council has accepted our recommendations and will now take steps to learn from what has happened and put things right for this resident.”

Local Government Lawyer has approached Enfield Council for comment.

Harry Rodd