Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner, (DPCC) Ian Dalgarno attended the Neighbourhood Watch (NHW) Crime and Community Conference last week.

The purpose of the conference is to reflect on the impact of work over the past year, celebrate achievements of the NHW volunteers across England and Wales and share best practice moving forward.

The chair of Neighbourhood Watch. Ian Bretman said “We are celebrating the fantastic work and achievements of the army of NHW volunteers, whose commitment to enabling communities to be connected, active and safe, whilst increasing wellbeing and minimising crime is incredible.

“Over the past year, while celebrating 40 years of NHW, our volunteers have faced significant challenges and uncertainties again but have also experienced moments of incredible resilience and perseverance. We look forward to building a better future for communities everywhere”.

Ian Dalgarno, DPCC said: “NHW is more than volunteering, it makes a huge difference in cutting community crime and not only that it is proven to increase community wellbeing and alleviates isolation and loneliness.

The conference was an amazing opportunity to network with colleagues in the NHE community and hear from other watch schemes on their projects and innovations.”

Watch schemes feature the Police and Crime Plan under priority 1 – to invest and support watch schemes as part of community safety.

Did you know?

Our volunteers in Bed

s contributed a total of 526 hours of patrols across the county in August:

• 388 hours of Street Watch patrols
• 138 hours of Dog and Horse Watch patrols
• We recruited for fifteen new speed watch volunteers

There are over 90,000 NHW groups across England and Wales. If you would like to find out more about becoming a volunteer in Bedfordshire, you can email watchschemes@beds.police.uk

To find out more about Neighbourhood Watch visit their website.