RESIDENTS in some of Wellington’s newest homes have organised themselves to work with local police in a fightback against crime - thanks to new town councillor Wayne Battishill.

Cllr Battishill has spent two years trying to set up Neighbourhood Watch schemes on the Cades Farm estate where he lives.

Now he has succeeded in creating 11 mini schemes across Cades, meaning that every road on the estate has some cover.

Neighbourhood Watch aims to bring residents together to create strong, friendly, active communities where crime and anti-social behaviour are less likely to happen. They are known to help people to feel less afraid, vulnerable, or isolated in the places where they live.

They involve residents looking out for each other and working closely with the police to help prevent and tackle crime, and they can even save residents money on their home insurance.

Cllr Battishill, who also set up the estate’s community Facebook group, said: “I had been working on this for 18 months even before I became a town councillor for Wellington East last July because we were suffering a fair amount of anti-social behaviour in the area.

“I saw how Neighbourhood Watch can work successfully in other places where I lived and so I knew it would be good for residents at Cades to be able to organise themselves and help our police get on top of anti-social behaviour and other crime.

“Now we have several schemes up and running and there are more and more households wanting to join us all the time.

“Neighbourhood Watch is good because it works at street level where residents know better than anybody else what the issues are where they live.

“On the back of our success, I have been asked by a resident on the Longforth Farm estate about the work we have done and now they are following suit and are also setting up their own scheme.

“I would like to do the same across the Wellington East ward and I am already talking to residents in Priory about starting up a similar scheme there.”