LANDLORDS have expressed concerns over a crackdown on neighbours from hell.

Private landlords fear they will be lumbered with housing yob families.

Swindon received £25,000 as part of the drive to rid neighbourhoods of loutish tenants. While supporting the idea in principle, the National Landlords' Association also has concerns.

Chairman David Salusbury said: "If troublesome families are evicted from social housing it is the private rented sector that will probably end up housing them because no one else will. This could come at the very time when some landlords, faced with the increasingly heavy burden of regulation that will be imposed by the new Housing Act, consider pulling out of the sector. "This is not joined up government."

Under the scheme, problem families will be offered a last chance to stop being a nuisance or face eviction.

They will also be sent on a rehabilitation programme.