Help your community with Neighbourhood Watch

Neighbourhood Watch Schemes

If you’re keen to get involved in the local community and assist the police in your area to help keep surroundings a safer place, then joining a Neighbourhood Watch Scheme enables you to keep a positive look out for criminals and crime in the vicinity.

What are they exactly?

Local residents, who consist of volunteers, form local based Neighbourhood Watch groups and they are actively involved in monitoring local areas for crime indicators and any other relevant illegal activities. Members of local watches inform the police and also divulge any information learnt amongst each other. The local volunteering teams always uphold some simple guidelines and rules which are instigated via the organisation on a national basis, and always directly partner with the police in local areas.

The operations of a Neighbourhood Watch group

Those members who freely give their time to helping local communities also enjoy the benefit of meeting and befriending their local neighbours whilst keeping a watchful gaze on the neighbourhood at large. As well as observing traffic in the street area, including where, or how this is parked, teams will also be aware of who is on holiday in the area or perhaps having current property maintenance and improvements. This kind of important information enables watches to successfully highlight any potentially illegal or criminal activity in the surrounding area and when a certain situation looks unusual in a certain way.

Those who proactively keep an eye out, acting as an extension to local police forces can give invaluable help and assistance to the local constabulary.

How do I join a Neighbourhood Watch group and make a difference?

To be a crime reducing part of your community you can join a local group in the immediate area. Establish these details by asking your local police or neighbourhood policing section who will give you necessary information in order to make initial contact with a local group.

Where no group exists, you might decide it is time to create one to help your local area fight crime. In this case the Neighbourhood Watch web site is an invaluable resource, assisting in all aspects of group creation and providing further resources such as logos, toolkits and publicity materials.

For other ways that you can help reduce criminal activity in your community, ask neighbourhood policing teams based in the local area to find out what is occurring in your part of the country. Local police contacts can give details of the next neighbourhood police meeting scheduled and how to get in touch with them with a view to attending.