A North Ayrshire councillor says he fears Police Scotland's decision not to investigate many low level crimes could see disputes between neighbours escalate.

And he warned the move could lead to more work for the council housing team handling tenant disputes and anti-social behaviour.

But council chiefs believe their plan to set up housing teams for individual localities will mean they will be able to respond to local problems much more quickly.

Police Scotland announced at the start of March that, following the success of a pilot programme, they would no longer investigate every crime.

Councillor Matthew McLean (Conservative, Irvine South) raised the issue at a full council meeting on March 27.

He asked what provisions had been made to increase capacity in the housing department team that deals with tenant disputes and anti-social behaviour.

Councillor Alan Hill, cabinet member for communities and islands, replied: "The service is moving to a new delivery model which will respond to housing related issues on a locality basis, ensuring that area teams have a shared understanding of local priorities and emerging issues.

"This will also ensure that housing staff are utilised to provide effective service delivery with a particular focus on prevention work."

Councillor McLean responded: "As many will have seen, Police Scotland is, in my view disappointingly, expanding its pilot programme to no longer investigate or attend what it deems to be low level incidents or crimes.

"That will inevitably put greater pressure on housing departments in order to deal with neighbour disputes and anti-social tenants.

"In many cases, the current prodecure has been that if there's been an incident, we would ask the tenant to go to the police, the police will investigate and then, if appropriate, act accordingly.

"Given that the police will no longer be investigating these incidents, there's a very real risk that low level incidents will escalate into much more serious ones.

"Given the extra workload, what impact will that have on the service?"

Councillor Hill replied: "I think, in essence, it is too soon to answer a question like that.

"Reorganisation will make the teams we have got more effective in terms of delivery. It will mean they are much closer to tenants on the ground and are able to respond more quickly to local issues.

"As to what happens in terms of changes made by Police Scotland, I think it is something the service will keep an eye on."