What is a closure order?

Good morning Resident

You may have seen information in the media, and messages via community messenger in relation to Closure Orders, I wanted to tell you more about what they are, and why we use them.  

A Closure Order allows the police or council to close premises quickly which are being used, or likely to be used, to commit nuisance to disorder.  

Depending on where you live, you may know of an address nearby your home, where the residents commit anti-social behaviour, crime and disorder.  

When these types of premises are reported to us, we generally take a multi-agency team to visit the residents. Sometimes, we may try to use a different power first to prevent the behaviour from continuing, such as a Community Protection Notice. (I will explain more about these next week)   

We may ask neighbours and other people on the street to complete anti-social behaviour diaries to tell us how the behaviours are affecting them. Some residents may feel scared, whilst others feel annoyed with the situation.  

We need to evidence to the court, that those involved, are causing a persistent issue and disrupting the community.  

There are two types of Closure Order, one is a partial, where the suspect is allowed to remain in the address, but not have any visitors to the property. Conditions usually apply that professionals, housing providers and police are the only people allowed to enter. The other type is a full closure, where no-one is allowed to enter the premises. This means that the resident must source accommodation elsewhere.  

We will place a notice on the door to the premise 48 hours prior to the case being heard at court.  

If the court grants the Closure Order, any breach is a criminal offence, which may lead to an imprisonment time of up to 51 weeks. Depending on the type of order, you may see us place metal fencing on the premises to secure the property.  

To allow us to consider a Closure Order, we need a lot of information from the local community. This is why we ask residents to complete ASB diaries and report anti-social behaviour to us.  

We have increased our Community Connection events around Scarborough and regularly have officers in locations such as supermarkets and the libraries. We have now added locations such as Everyone Active, St Catherine’s and St Martins Church.  

You will start to see more events being advertised by my colleagues.  

Kind Regards 

Dan