Auto Amazon Links: No products found. Blocked by captcha.
In Baildon, West Yorkshire, a neighbourhood watch scheme has been credited with helping reduce crime in the community by over a third since a boom in membership six years ago. Around a quarter of the town’s population is registered as members, making it one of Yorkshire’s largest schemes. Neighbourhood Watch has been operating throughout the UK for more than four decades, and was originally intended to turn residents’ eyes and ears into valuable crime-fighting resources.
The scheme in Baildon began around 20 years ago, instituted by Maggie Town. Initially, the town’s neighbourhood watch had a small following of just over two dozen volunteers, but with the advent of social media and the arrival of a new police sergeant the scheme grew dramatically in March 2018. The Facebook group for the neighbourhood watch has around 4,000 local members, providing a useful resource for intelligence gathering as well as improving communication between the community and the local police.
The Baildon neighbourhood policing team’s head sergeant, Terri Green, commented on the success of the scheme, saying: “I think communication is key to it all, between the community, but also between the community and us. I’ve been here eight years and I know pretty much everyone in Baildon.”
Since the neighbourhood watch scheme has grown to encompass over half of Baildon’s 320 streets, crime has fallen every year since 2019 according to police data. West Yorkshire’s deputy mayor for policing and crime, Alison Lowe, praised the growth of the scheme as a community initiative, saying “They love where they live, they want to protect where they live and they want to do it with the police.”
The scheme’s success in Baildon is due to the cooperation between the residents and the local police, which has created a lasting legacy of helping the community thrive. Looking out for isolated people in the community has become part of the ethos of the neighbourhood watch, providing a sense of safety and security to the residents. Sgt Green places a higher value on the sentiment of safety rather than the statistics.
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
Auto Amazon Links: No products found. Blocked by captcha.