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Home > Themes > Safer > West Middlesbrough Street Wardens
Theme:
Making West Middlesbrough Safer
Project Description:
West Middlesbrough has a dedicated team of twelve Street Wardens who work side by side with the Community Caretakers and the Police in West Middlesbrough to deter crime and anti-social behaviour and tackle environmental problems including abandoned cars and fly tipping.
The Wardens work closely with the Middlesbrough-wide team of Street Wardens which has been operating in the town since April 2002. The Wardens have proven to be a unique asset to the town by providing a highly visible, uniformed presence on the streets of Middlesbrough.
A major advantage of the scheme is that the Wardens are community based in and about the streets and estates in which they work. This means they can share information and resources and enables them to listen to problems, worries and news from local residents. Wardens form a ‘soft’ rather than ‘hard’ interface between people and agencies.
Wardens can be effective by maximising visibility, using their resources effectively and recognising that visibility is not just a matter of the intensity of patrolling but of patrolling where and when the Wardens are needed.
Key successes of the wardens include:
- Helping deliver local crime and disorder reduction targets, reducing fear of crime by creating confidence in the community, building community spirit and trust
- Building community trust to report crimes
- Visible, uniformed patrols deterring, identifying, observing and reporting criminal behaviour
- Patrolling ‘hotspot’ areas
- Acting as professional witnesses
- Providing intelligence eg for Anti-Social Behaviour Orders
- Crime prevention projects eg with schools and older people.
- Victim support
- Working closely with CCTV
- Gathering intelligence from residents who will not directly contact the police
- Looking out for wanted persons
- Intervening in incidents of anti-social behaviour and reporting offenders
- Providing information for the detection and prosecution of more serious crimes such as drug misuse
- Taking part in community events to help build community spirit
When Project Starts and Ends:
November 2003 to November 2006
Key Partners:
WMNT, Middlesbrough Council, all enforcement agencies, the Fire Service
Total Project Cost:
£804,328
WMNT Funding For Project:
£779,300
Contact For Further Info:
Email Bill Thompson, Warden Service Manager or telephone on (01642) 243533
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