Community Crime Fighters!

Inspector Darville and Lisa Cherry (Borough Watch Manager)

Last night I chaired the AGM for the Redbridge Neighbourhood Watch Association at the Jack Carter Pavillion, Barkingside. There are now 298 watches with a purported 40,000 homes under their vigilence in Redbridge (I have personally initiated 15 in Chadwell/Seven Kings and Mayfield). Redbridge has the fastest rate of growth of NHW's in London. These meetings were notoriously long, as constitutional ammendments have previously been argued meticuously. However for the first time in 3 years, we completed the meeting at around 21:30 instead of 23:00, as it seems all watches are now starting to back the new younger look panel.


I was last night asked to provide a presentation detailing how the group almost debanded but for the hard work of Alex Bailey (secretary) Isla Martin (Joint Treasurer and Green Activist!), Simon Hampshire (Joint Treasurer), Lisa Cherry (Borough Watch Manager), Tippi Maravalla (Area Co-ordinator), Wilson himself and our Honorary President Harmegh Rattan (MBE). Now it seems a new dawn has begun for what once was an ailing group!


Over 60 watches were represented on the night and due to surplus funds in our accounts, we rewarded NH Watches with a box of white paper each, as a gift towards the printing of their regular newsletters.


Co-ordinators were thanked for their efforts and were advised that tangible evidence existed correlating a reduction in crime with the presence of a local NHW. Guest speakers included Phil Walby form the Redbridge ASBO team who advised people of the service and how it could benefit them. Surprisingly few watches new of their existence..? This gave me great pleasure as I invited Phil realising few peopel in the borough barring Chadwell Residents of course new of their existence. We also had Dave Quinton from the MET Police and Redbridge Council endorsed "Buy with Confidence" scheme. He talked about his website

http://www.buywithconfidence.gov.uk/ that provided Redbridge residents with an opportunity to selected contracor's that have been vetted in a stringent process that involves obtaining references, accreditation checks and Criminal Record Bureau checks. He also talked about the "Consumer Advice" and Trading standards service. Both these speakers stayed to answer questions and were thanked for their contribution by visitors.


Inspector Darville opened the meeting and left straight after the presentation without a question and answer opportunity. The lack of any police presence for the rest of the meeting raised the ire of the attendees and resulted in a clamour for a motion to be passed for better police presence at future meetings and an opportunity to pose questions. Another motion was set that indicated the RNWA apprehension to the Police split of the Borough into 3 areas in juxtaposition to the 7 Area committes set by the council. It was felt that a system in tandem with the Council's 7 Areas would serve better purpose.


After its official launch in August 2007 no real progress has been made with the group. Now it would seem, we finally have the support of all the watches. A funding application to the Home office has been submitted and we hope to hear soon of confirmation that we have secured close to £10,000 for a boroughwide "No to Bogus callers" Campaign and a budget for marketing. If successful we will be the only borough within our neighbours to have success with these Grant scheme. The funding application was produced by Lisa Cherry and myself conjunctively. We still have over 30 boxes of paper to distribute to local NHW's please contact me if you are interested.

From left to right Lisa Cherry Borough Watch Commander, 3 NHW Co-ordinators, Harmegh Rattan MBE (Honorary President), Phil Walby Redbridge ASBO Officer, Dave Quinton (Buy with Confidence), Alex Bailey (secretary RNWA), Isla Martin (Joint Treasurer RNWA), Simon Hampshire (Joint Treasurer RNWA), Wilson Chowdhry Chairman RNWA)

There was some fun and games at the end of the evening!