Neighbourhood helpline

The University of Leeds works in partnership with the city’s other higher education institutions, the Leeds City Council Antisocial Behaviour Team and West Yorkshire Police. We aim to engage with neighbouring communities, help our students to foster positive behaviour, and address potential negative effects on the wider community through education alongside disciplinary and enforcement action.

The universities jointly run the Leeds Universities and Colleges Neighbourhood Helpline service. This is available to all residents of Leeds to report neighbourhood issues involving students, to help us identify and change nuisance behaviour.

The University of Leeds and Leeds Beckett University also fund a dedicated anti-social behaviour and noise service for the Inner North West Leeds area, which is run by Leeds City Council. The service provides a dedicated resource for the area including intelligence let proactive patrols, response officer covering 5pm to 4am seven nights a week, and increased contact centre call handling capacity at peak times. Resource for this team is increased on Friday and Saturday nights as well as key dates such as Freshers Week. A funded community coordinator role based within LASBT west Team will also coordinate the dedicated service delivery to ensure we maximise the resource and provide customer focussed interface between the partnership and residents.

How to report an issue

If you are experiencing an issue with anti-social behaviour or noise nuisance from domestic properties, you should in the first instance contact the Leeds City Council Anti-Social Behaviour Team:

During office hours (9am – 5pm, Monday to Friday) – call 0113 222 4402
Outside of office hours (6pm – 3:30am and weekends) – call 0113 376 0337
Operating hours for the out of hours service are due to be extended from February 2022 and details will be updated on this page once the new hours are in operation.
Find out more about making a noise complaint to Leeds City Council

The Universities work closely with the Anti-Social Behaviour Team, but to enable swift action where student residents are involved, we encourage you to also share information with the Neighbourhood Helpline:

Complete the online form here
Call us (24hr voicemail service):  0113 343 1064
Email us:  neighbourhood.helpline@leeds.ac.uk

The Neighbourhood Helpline aims to respond to emails and calls within 48 hours, but this may be longer during busy periods and at weekends or holidays.

Please refer to the Neighbourhood Helpline Code (Word doc) for details of the complaint handling procedures. By contacting the Neighbourhood Helpline, via telephone, email or submitting the webform below,  you are agreeing to our privacy policy.

The disciplinary process

Details of complaints are shared between Helpline partners to help identify students living in the properties concerned. The relevant university or college will then take appropriate action in line with their own governance and policies.

Where University of Leeds students have been identified as being involved in a complaint, we follow a four stage process. As part of the process we classify the severity of the complaint to decide whether educational or disciplinary action is most appropriate. Where necessary a referral to the University’s General Disciplinary Regulations will be made, where the outcomes can include official warnings, fines, suspensions and expulsion from the University.

Stage 1 - Identification of the University of Leeds student involvement with community issues

Issues are registered with the University through the process detailed in the Neighbourhood Helpline Code. Where our students have been identified as living at a property causing a neighbourhood issue, the Sustainability service begin the University process for handling community complaints.

The University assesses the severity and impact of the incident reported before deciding on the best course of action. The impact can be classed as minor, moderate or major, and these have different potential outcomes in the disciplinary process.

Stage 2 - Contact made with students involved

Where issues were considered to have had a minor impact and where it is the first complaint received against the students, then all students identified as living at the property are contacted through a letter. This details the allegation and provides guidance on living locally and the University, as well as explaining the processes and sanctions if further complaints are registered. It also advises students that if further complaints are received, then further disciplinary action will be taken.

If the issue was classed as having a moderate impact or if they have already been involved in previous complaints then the disciplinary process will proceed to stage 3.

Students involved in issues that had a major impact proceed directly to stage 4 of the disciplinary process.

Stage 3 - Good Citizenship training

If the issue was moderate or if students have been involved in previous complaints then they will be invited to Good Citizenship training.

All students identified as living at the property are contacted through a letter and email to request that they attend the Good Citizenship training workshop within a specified time frame. The letter details the allegations, provides guidance on resident responsibilities and details the University and Leeds City Council processes for responding to neighbourhood issues.

The workshop has been developed to give students a better understanding of their role and responsibilities in society and how to make a positive contribution to the local community.

This includes guidance on how to manage conflict with others, identify solutions to neighbourhood disputes, understand the consequences and impacts of nuisance behaviours and help them to prevent further situations that would result in further complaints.

At the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

State their need for training around good citizenship;
Describe the rights and responsibilities of citizens and the sanctions should these be breached. Including Leeds City Council and University sanctions for community conduct.
Describe the impact anti-social behaviour has on people, businesses and organisations in the community;
Describe examples of anti-social behaviour and the solutions to resolve situations; and
Describe how they might contribute positively to their community and articulate actions to enable them to make such a contribution.

The Good Citizenship training workshop is compulsory for those who are asked to attend. Students that fail to attend within the required time frame are referred to the Head of Student Cases for further action.

Stage 4 - Referral to the Head of Student cases

If the complaint was considered to have had a major impact or if students have previously attended Good Citizenship training and receive further complaints then they will be directly referred to the Head of Student cases.

Student behaviour and appropriate action will then be considered under the  General Disciplinary Regulations.

Community partnership

Through ongoing dialogue and engagement with the local community and our partners, we work proactively to meet local needs and ensure the university and our students play a positive role in society.

We attend community meetings and committees to listen to the needs of the community and develop collaborative approaches to managing issues. These include involvement in working groups tasked with addressing noise nuisance and issues associated with the period when our students move out of their shared housing.

The Leeds higher education institutions will publish a termly report, and the first report will be available in early 2022.

The table below provides detail on the number of complaints received by the Neighbourhood Helpline, the number that were linked to University of Leeds students, and actions taken to date. These actions may be ongoing, and so the numbers in this table may change over time.

	February	March	April
Total complaints to the Neighbourhood Helpline	41	57	42
Total complaints relating to Noise and ASB	26	40	18
Total complaints involving University of Leeds students	7	22	15
Total households sent Helpline partnership warning letters	0	0	0
Total University of Leeds student households sent warning letters	1	6	7
Total University of Leeds households referred to Student Citizenship training	2	7	4
Total University of Leeds student households referred for a University Police Officer visit	0	0	0
Total University of Leeds student households referred to and action taken by Accommodation Team	0	0	1
Total University of Leeds students referred to Head of Student Cases	2	2	0
Total University of Leeds Disciplinary Actions	5	15	12

Please note, single incidents are reported through multiple complaints and in most cases more than one student is involved. This explains why the numbers of engaged households, may not directly correlate with the number of complaints received.