Thursday December 11th 2025
Midlothian House
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Marie Sharp
A crackdown on antisocial council tenants has been called for after police had to deal with nearly 30 incidents-a-day in Midlothian.
A Police Scotland report revealed during the second quarter of this year there were just under 2,700 recorded incidents of antisocial behaviour across the county.
Inspector David Rourke told a meeting of Midlothian Council’s police and fire rescue board that high visibility police patrols had been tackling hotspots of youth disorder in the county but not all incidents involved young people.
Councillor Stephen Curran told the meeting he wants the local authority to get tough with tenants who are involved in incidents urging officers to work with the police to ensure action is taken.
He said: “I know there is joint working with the council and police when it comes to our tenants and homes when it comes to being perpetrators of antisocial behaviour but I would like to see the council take a much more robust approach in terms of how it deals with tenants.
“We can all cite tenants who are completely abusing their tenancies and we know we have a list as long as your arm in terms of people waiting for council homes who would give anything to have a secure tenancy.
“Yet we have a small group of people completely abusing their tenancies and causing havoc for their neighbours and communities and I would like to see the council taking a much more robust approach.”
Councillor Curran said he was aware a seminar was due to be held in the near future for councillors to go over housing policies with officers.
The council’s Derek Oliver told the meeting: “It is something we work closely on with the police in terms of our tenants and warnings being issued but we can address it through the briefing Councillor Curran alludes to as well.”
Midlothian Council has a waiting list of 6,360 applicants looking for a home from a housing stock of 7,670 units.
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