South Derbyshire District Council - Safer Neighbourhood Wardens

The Safer Neighbourhood Wardens have been working at South Derbyshire since summer 2006 and during that time their role has developed due to the fact that, as a new service, we were not sure how much time would be spent doing each of their range of duties.

So what do they actually do? They have four primary roles:

Patrol the district with a CCTV van addressing issues relating to anti-social behaviour. This is a role which is most necessary in the evenings and as such the Wardens work late shifts, on some occasions assisting Police Community Support Officers. They patrol areas which might have groups of youths congregating and, in the main, make sure the youths are behaving themselves and not causing distress to others. Typical patrol areas include all parks, the urban core of Swadlincote, Church / Castle Gresley and Newhall plus Melbourne and other outlying villages such as Findern. Where problems arise in smaller villages then patrols take place to address them.
Dealing with duties traditionally associated with Council Dog Wardens. This includes collecting stray dogs (which the Council now has a duty to cover out of normal office hours as well), dealing with barking dog complaints, fouling complaints, re-homing strays which are not collected, taking injured or ill stray dogs to the vets etc.
Dealing with fly tipping. The Wardens inspect any fly tips found in the district for evidence before the Clean Team go to work clearing it. This often leads to house visits and interviews under caution from which enough evidence may be available to take the matter to Court. On many occasions people are prosecuted or given formal cautions, along with many warning letters being sent for occasions when there is insufficient evidence to take the matter further. Also, the Council uses CCTV kit to try to catch fly tippers in the act.
Patrolling and serving fixed penalty notices for a range of offences including littering, dog fouling, waste offences, parking vehicles for sale (subject to certain criteria), graffiti, fly posting, distributing literature etc. etc.
Dealing with abandoned vehicles.

Within these core areas are other elements which are difficult to quantify but are still a very important role of the Wardens. For example, one of the reasons for them patrolling is to make people feel safer in their homes. This is achieved quite simply by them being visible on the street. This is most prevalent when dealing with youths in the evenings.

This is only a quick overview of the work of the Safer Neighbourhood Wardens. If you are interested in finding out more about their work then see the Safer Neighbourhood Wardens' blog at: http://saferneighbourhoodwardens.blogspot.com/

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