Call to join Neighbourhood Watch (From Swindon Advertiser)

Call to join Neighbourhood Watch

1:00pm Thursday 17th June 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

SAY Neighbourhood Watch to most people and it will conjure up an image of twee gatherings and curtain-twitching.

But it is an image Wiltshire Police is keen to bury this Neighbourhood Watch week as it calls upon the community-spirited to be the new faces of a scheme in Swindon.

“It’s not being nosy, it’s not curtain twitching and it’s not spying on your neighbours,” said Inspector Nick Bancroft, of Wiltshire Police’s Citizen Focus team.

“We’ll be the first to admit that when we make inquiries we don’t always get it right. In order to be sensitive and efficient within communities we need to have an open relationship with the people living there.

“Neighbourhood Watch is one way we can have contact with residents who can tell us information which may help us look into incidents or make inquiries more effectively than we maybe would without that neighbourhood knowledge.

“It is not us getting members of the public to do our job, it’s a way of improving public confidence and returning to that sense of neighbourliness we don’t see so much anymore.”

The main purpose of Neighbourhood Watch is to strengthen community ties by encouraging residents to look out for one another, particularly with regard to those who are elderly or considered vulnerable.

Pat Willis is a veteran of the scheme, having joined in 1995 following a spate of anti-social behaviour in his Highworth street.

“We were having eggs thrown at the houses and graffiti on walls and frankly, enough was enough,” he said.

“What the scheme has done is make us a community. There is a real sense of community spirit in Highworth, like it used to be when everyone knew their neighbours.

“Many of us in my street have the keys to each others’ houses and will drop by and check everything is all right if anyone goes on holiday.”

Joining Neighbourhood Watch is completely free and the police will not come to your house unless invited.

“It used to be very much considered as a busy-body’s job, curtain twitching an all that,” said Pat, 56.

“But in actual fact, it’s offering a security blanket for your neighbours.”

In Pat’s time in the scheme, the group have done two welfare checks, where a neighbour had not been seen for a while.

”In one case it was fine but in the other one of our neighbours had died,” he said.

“The police came round and knocked the door down and he’d passed away in the night. Although it wasn’t a happy ending, at least he wasn’t lying there for weeks like so many people we have heard about in the news.”

To ask Pat about his experiences with Neighbourhood Watch call 01793 763967.

If you would like more information on becoming a Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator or member, visit the Wiltshire Neighbourhood Watch website at www.nhw-wilts.org.uk or call 0845 408 7000 for details on how to contact your local NPT.