RESIDENTS voiced their frustration with the city council and police at a meeting over their failure to tackle the blight of antisocial behaviour on Southampton's streets.

The meeting of the Federation of Southampton Residents' Associations at the Civic Centre saw a succession of people stand up to say they thought the council was failing them.

Top of the list of irritants was the number of late-night drinking licences handed out to city centre pubs, causing disruption and vandalism to outlying areas as revellers returned home.

Other residents blasted both the police and the council for failing to communicate properly about action taken on their complaints.

There was applause for a suggestion that the university and the institute, as well as city licensees, should bear some of the cost of cleaning up after drunken nights out.

The event saw councillor Elizabeth Mizon outline the authority's plans for tackling antisocial behaviour. "There's a wonderful saying in Africa: It takes a village to bring up a child," she said, explaining that the council wanted everyone to band together to beat the problem.

"This problem is one of our first priorities," she said. "If we don't take some measures now to stop antisocial behaviour in our streets then the future looks very bleak."

Adults had to take responsibility and win back the respect of the disruptive minority, she said.

Federation chairman Peter Wirg-man said: "Part of the licence obliges the licensee to stop serving people who have had too much to drink. This doesn't seem to be happening."

He added that the federation was asking to get involved with local implementation of the government's 24-hour shake-up of licensing laws.