Welcome To Wirral

In January 2007, Wirral was designated as a Respect Area, being at that time one of 40 areas nationally who demonstrated a commitment and capacity to do more to tackle ASB and lead the rest of the country.

Tackling anti-social behaviour is a key element of Wirral’s Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnership Strategy (see download).

Complaints of anti-social behaviour can be reported to ‘It’s Your Call’, a dedicated telephone actionline for reporting anti-social behaviour.

The Council has a dedicated multi-disciplinary team, Wirral Anti-Social Behaviour Team (WASBT), focusing its work on prevention and enforcement.  Further information relating to the Team can be found here.

Defining Anti-Social Behaviour

The term 'anti-social behaviour' encompasses a variety of behaviour covering a whole mix of selfish and unacceptable activity that can blight the quality of life of people and communities.  Other terms such as a 'nuisance', 'neighbour nuisance', and 'disorder' are also used to describe some of this behaviour.

Anti-social behaviour can include relatively minor nuisance such as littering, graffiti and fly tipping, often referred to as environmental crime.  It can also include more serious and distressing behaviour including harassment, intimidation, noise, incidents motivated by discrimination, verbal abuse and threats of violence.  This is not an exhaustive list and there is often an overlap between what is a criminal offence and what is anti-social behaviour. Many behaviour types are both.

The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 defines anti-social behaviour as behaviour which causes or is likely to cause "harassment, alarm or distress" to someone not of the same household.

Anti-social behaviour can be perpetrated by individuals, groups and families, adults and children.