REPORTS of antisocial behaviour in York are decreasing - but the city is still getting “bad karma” from people visiting from the north east, according to one councillor.

And he said cheap rail fares to the city could be to blame.

Reports of antisocial behaviour to the joint council and police hub have dropped by nearly 80 per cent since 2015, from 1,173 to 256. However, the same council report said there was just an eight per cent drop in reports of antisocial behaviour to North Yorkshire Police during the past three years.

Members of the council’s Health, Housing and Adult Social Care Policy and Scrutiny Committee praised police and neighbourhood enforcement officers for their work but warned York is still seen as having high levels of antisocial behaviour.

Cllr Paul Doughty said: “It worries me that this is potentially causing the city harm in terms of reputation and it’s something that residents do mention.

“How can we break that perception that antisocial behaviour is high or rising?

“The figures show a significant fall in antisocial behaviour being reported, now that’s not entirely necessarily all down to the fact that it is reducing, but that’s a massive drop.”

Cllr Tony Richardson praised the team for its efforts but highlighted problems with antisocial behaviour at the train station and said more can be done to “alleviate the bad karma we are getting from various areas”.

He said: “For some reason there are cheap tickets from Middlesbrough down to York - I don’t know why they pick York as a cheap destination - if it’s to do with families then great, if it’s to do with a cheap day out getting drunk then clearly something needs to be done across borders to say, ‘what about you doing something about this’ because it’s us who are being affected'.

“I’d like to thank the neighbourhood team for their hard work, however I am concerned that they do seem to be well under staffed and it doesn’t seem to be changing.”

The head of community safety at City of York Council, Jane Mowat, said it is “frustrating” that reports of antisocial behaviour have fallen but the city is “still fighting a perception issue”.

Cllr Kallum Taylor said: “We’re on top of antisocial behaviour as much as we possibly can be and it is going down. How do we combine that with other initiatives that say to people, ‘come to us, it’s a fantastic city to be in and we’ve got a handle on antisocial behaviour, but if you still want to have a night out you can still have a great time'.”

A report prepared for councillors says much of the antisocial behaviour highlighted in the media is “low level nuisance” rather than criminal.