A DISPERSAL zone credited with combating antisocial behaviour in Southampton may have to be lifted because it has been so successful.

Home Office minister Tony McNulty told MPs that police powers to split up gangs in designated areas were generally withdrawn once a problem had been cleared up.

Local councils could only apply to police for a six-month extension to a zone if there was still trouble.

Mr McNulty said he would "look into" the current law to see if it should be changed.

The minister was responding to John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen, who said the dispersal zone covering the city's Sholing district had had a "marked improving effect" on antisocial behaviour since it was introduced in October.

Mr Denham said in the House of Commons: "The current rules appear to imply that if a dispersal zone works, the local authority and the police can no longer justify having one."

He also called for the rules to be changed to give the authorities more flexibility to vary the boundaries of dispersal zones.

Mr McNulty responded: "I take the point that the import of the existing law is that once a problem has been solved, a dispersal zone is to be shut down, and reinvented only if the situation occurs again - we need to look into that.

"The existing system may well be too bureaucratic to allow such zones' boundaries to be varied."

The rules governing dispersal zones are set out in Section 30 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003, which provides police with powers to disperse groups of two or more people where residents are likely to suffer harassment, intimidation, alarm or distress.

People under 16 who are behaving in an antisocial manner in public places after 9pm may be returned to their homes. If they return to the same place within 24 hours they can be arrested. Mr Denham said concerns about the future of the Sholing DZ, due to expire at the end of the month, were raised with him at a meeting with local residents.

Southampton City Council is assessing whether to ask police to keep the zone in place for a further six months.

Last month a separate dispersal zone was set up in the St Mary's area of the city. Two others, in Warburton Road and Bitterne Precinct, were recently lifted.