Councillors demand tough action and drug tests on badly behaved tenants in Dudley
Dudley councillors are calling for tougher action on badly behaved tenants including drug tests for cannabis abuse.
Members of the authority’s Communities and Growth Scrutiny Committee had their say during a debate about the latest report on antisocial behaviour (ASB) in the borough.
At their meeting on September 24, councillors welcomed reforms to how the council tackles ASB which have led to improved satisfaction scores but said more needs to be done to deal with people who break their tenancy agreement.
Cllr Parmjit Sahota said: “Things are getting better but there is still a lot of ASB and quite a lot of work to do.
“There is a lot of ASB from from council tenants, we are far too lenient on enforcing tenancy conditions. Some tenants are getting away with a lot of ASB issues.”
Council officers reported between September 2024 and August 2025 their ASB teams had managed 1,863 complaints with noise making up 53 percent, nuisance neighbours were the subject of 17 percent of complaints and drugs/substance abuse and dealing was third with four percent.
Cllr James Clinton said: “I was a council tenant for 20 years, drugs is a breach of your tenancy, why aren’t we getting rid of these tenants?”
Council officers told Cllr Clinton even when they can smell cannabis they have no powers to force entry to a property and seize the substance.
Kathy Jones, Dudley group director of housing and assets, added: “The burden of proof in court is really difficult, when it comes to criminal activity we are reliant on partnerships with the police and others.
“We have to have the support of the police and others to provide the evidence the court needs.”
Cllr Clinton said: “This is probably sounding a bit harsh but a train driver or a bus driver has regular drug tests – if you’ve got a council tenant playing up and it is constant for years why can’t you ask them?”
Officers said they were not sure how they would enforce drug testing council tenants.
After the meeting, Cllr Clinton said drug testing would be something for the most extreme cases but told the Local Democracy Reporting Service he felt the council was not doing enough to ‘go after’ nuisance council tenants.
Cllr Clinton said: “Officers seem to prioritise on moving elderly people out of homes they have lived in all their life instead of targeting nuisance neighbours or tenants constantly smoking cannabis in their property.
“They know they are doing it but cannot do anything – it is wrong.
“They need to take it a bit more seriously, they say they are going to come down on private tenants but they need to get their own house in order first.”
