Neighbour hood watch, you’ll cop it.

For many years I have run a neighbourhood watch scheme in my street, helped form a neighbourhood watch association in our ward and been involved with Sandwell’s crime prevention panel. Most of this voluntary work is thankless and I often think our members just humour me. NHW has a good relationship with our local PCSOs and neighbourhood police officers but I often think that the police senior managers think we are just a bunch of do gooders to be tolerated. This attitude varies dependent on the regime and over the years we have had Commanders who were very pro NHW. Recently, mostly because of what I see as senior police indifference I have felt that perhaps it was time for me to pass on the role of coordinator to a younger person(if we can get one). Yesterday I decided to canvass all the membership in my street to sign a petition NHW are promoting to get improvements to safety measures on the duel carriage way which borders our ward. I was very surprised at the result. Almost all of the membership was totally behind the petition and most were very appreciative of what my wife and I have been doing and said so. It is nice sometimes to be appreciated and I thank you all for your support. Even though senior police may not be comfortable with what we are doing my neighbours certainly appreciate it.