Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Ellis has announced an independent review of Neighbourhood Watch to enable local volunteers to increase the pressure on crime through community action in Staffordshire.
The review will build on the strong foundations and valued contributions of Neighbourhood Watch groups which have over 25,000 members across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
The Commissioner has pledged extra investment from his budgets to reinvigorate and modernise Neighbourhood Watch and get a wider range of people involved.
He said: “Volunteers play a critical part in helping to make our communities safe and make a massive contribution to society.
“Neighbourhood Watch offers a great chance for people to work with police and partners at a local level to keep our communities safe.
“The aim of the review is to see how we can get more people involved, how we can make Neighbourhood Watch an even bigger force to be reckoned with in supporting police to cut crime and how we can realise the power of communities to help deter wrongdoing.
“It’s about attacking criminality from the top down through even better policing and from the bottom up through community action to squeeze crime harder than ever before.
“Everybody involved with Neighbourhood Watch from members to co-ordinators has done a really good job but I want to recognise the value that Neighbourhood Watch brings more than ever before. I want to invest in it and get more people involved – and that’s what we’re going to do over the next year or two.”
The review will work with Local Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinators and members and look at examples of excellent community engagement at a regional, national and international level. It will start in the next fortnight and is likely to last for a couple of months, providing clear recommendations on the way forward.
