Neighbour disputes in East Lothian fall by 30% as people return to work

The number of neighbour disputes needing council intervention in East Lothian fell by nearly a third as people returned to their offices in the last year.

A report on antisocial behaviour complaints in the council area between October 2021 and March 2022 dropped by 29% compared to the same period the previous year.

The council has said the drop in cases, which normally involve neighbour households, is being put down to more people going back to work.

The report on antisocial behaviour said 733 complaints were recorded during the last six months of 2021/22 – down from 887 during the same period of the year before.

Of the 773 complaints received, 265 related to antisocial noise (primarily loud music), 146 were youth related, 95 to drug misuse and the remaining 267 consisting of, amongst other things, shouting, swearing, neighbour disputes and verbal abuse.

The biggest hotspot remained Musselburgh, which is the county’s largest town and saw 32% of all complaints coming from its residents.

Tranent was the second busiest town for complaints with 20%, while 14% came from Dunbar, 13% from Prestonpans, 17% from Haddington and just 4% from North Berwick.

The council’s safer communities service manager Kenneth Black said that while the figures were down on the previous year, they remained higher than 2019/20 by nine percent, arguing the legacy of the pandemic when working from home and a reduction in tolerance levels saw complaints soar continued.

He said: “The number of referrals made to our in-house resolution service saw a 29% decrease, which may in fact align with the number of people returning to their workplaces during that period.”