A NATIONAL register of trouble-makers should be compiled to reduce the problem of anti-social behaviour in privately-rented houses, says a councillor.

Garry Huntington, who represents Shildon on Sedgefield Borough Council, says landlords regularly let properties without vetting applicants.

He recently wrote to the Home Office to ask what could be done and was told the police could issue an anti-social behaviour order against persistent offenders.

The order could be used to impose conditions relating to future behaviour and, if broken, could lead to a prison sentence, or fine.

Coun Huntington said: "The thing that disturbs me at the moment is that we have a large number of landlords, some of them living in London, buying properties because they are cheap, and they are putting people in without vetting them.

"We do not know who these people are and the police have no record of them. We are importing trouble.

"I believe that anybody who commits an offence of this nature should go on a register and before a landlord lets a house they should be informed."