From Philip Virgo as Development Lead for Neighbourhood Watch in Lambeth
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I recently took on the task of identifying those interested in helping create a Neighbourhood Watch Association to support the 80 or so Street and Estate Groups in Lambeth.
This may sound a lot of groups but Bexley, for example, has over 800. More-over in Lambeth most groups are small, usually the administrators of the street Whatsapp group.
That makes for hard work, forwarding relevant NW material for distribution to the wider group and well as distilling material for passing to police or others.
One of the first tasks is to identify YOUR local priorities.
Thus one of the topics for the January newsletter was domestic violence. I therefore hope to organise an alert adding the relevant contacts for Lambeth and London. But most of the complaint to me are of car crime, shoplifting and teen-on-teen violence.
Recent national data indicates that anti-social behaviour and on-line scams should have priority while local data indicates that “Young Neighbourhood Watch” (i.e. addressing the fears of children on their way to/from school or in their bedrooms) should be a priority … especially if it is wished to reduce traffic jams caused by those driving their children to/from school because of safety fears.
Last week I visited a local school with an experienced youth worker and came away realising how little I know of the traumas facing the children of today … and the reasons for their reluctance to tell their parents when they most need help.
We have a number of ideas to explore including a variety of school patrols, safe havens and mentoring/support ideas. But who is interested and/or would like to help?
It would be most helpful if you could update YOUR personal entry as a member of Neighbourhood Watch and or drop me a note on what YOU would like to see and/or would like to help organise..
At present the most common registered interest is Cycle Watch.
If that is correct I would like to pass the details of those interested to the volunteer I have asked to review the material produced by Oxford Neighbourhood Watch, to update it for Lambeth and to make contact with those looking at how to help the police address the current plague of theft. He would very much like others with similar interests to help.
Next comes Dog Watch. I very much wish to here from volunteers interested in looking at what is done elsewhere and to distil the best ideas for local use.
Until the creation of the Lambeth Neighbourhood Watch Association as a separate entity the administration is hosted on a pro-bono basis by Winsafe Ltd, alongside a pilot cluster, the Norwood Community Safety Partnership.
The e-mail address for both is community@winsafe.ltd
Winsafe Ltd 