ASBO-style orders used on nine occasions in West Norfolk
They can place legal restrictions on people whose behaviour negatively impacts a community.
King's Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council used ASBO-style orders aimed at tackling nuisance behaviour on nine occasions last year, figures reveal.
The council issued nine Community Protection Notices in the year to October last year, according to Freedom of Information requests submitted by the campaign group the Manifesto Club.
The orders can place legal restrictions on people whose behaviour is deemed to have a “detrimental” effect on a community’s quality of life.
The council said the CPNs were given out for reasons including playing music loudly, disorderly behaviour arising from alcohol consumption, cycling in a dangerous manner including in pedestrian areas, the clearing of waste and rubbish from a property, the use of foul language in an abusive manner, and doing offensive hand gestures.
Director of the Manifesto Club Josie Appleton said the test for what constitutes detrimental behaviour was “unprecedentedly low” for criminal intervention, and that the powers were hard to appeal.
She added: “These blank-cheque busybody powers are the cause of immense injustice, and a fundamental threat to our freedoms. They should be removed from the statute book.”
The notices and Public Spaces Protection Orders, which can be used to ban activities, were introduced by the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.
A King's Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council spokesman said:
"Community Protection Notices are a useful tool and are designed to tackle a range of behaviours deemed to be having a detrimental impact on the quality of life of others in the community and where those behaviours are persistent and continuing.
"The CPN gives us the ability to set conditions for an individual requiring them to cease or moderate certain behaviours and take steps to reduce the detrimental impact.
"The Borough Council continues to work in partnership with other agencies, such as the Police and Housing Providers, and a range of actions may be considered depending on each case, including referrals for relevant support and signposting as well as direct action by the lead agency as deemed necessary.
"Public Space Protection Orders are in place to tackle issues affecting a whole area and scheduled monitoring takes place where a need is identified and fed back to relevant agencies to inform future actions.
"The CPN allows the Local Authority to describe the behaviour(s) affecting others and set conditions which can be specifically tailored to the individual circumstances. We can then take direct action on breach of the conditions, such as a fixed penalty notice, remedial action or prosecution.
"The CPN is a two staged process and requires a warning, called a Community Protection Warning (CPW), to be served in the first instance which provides information on the behaviour, action to be taken and future action should the behaviour continue. In most cases the person or company has already been made aware of the unacceptable behaviour and the CPW is the final step of informal intervention. The informal use of the CPW's and compliance is far higher than the formal use of CPN's, meaning behaviour is mostly addressed quickly in the early stages."