Surrey Neighbourhood Watch Association (SWNA)

Neighbourhood Watch works with the Police, residents, local authorities, and other agencies to ensure everyone comes together to make their communities safe.

SNWA provides local leadership, strategic direction, advice, governance and guidance to Neighbourhood Watch borough teams, Coordinators, and residents to prevent crime, to reduce the fear of crime, and to improve the wellbeing of law-abiding citizens. We also act as a central organisation in direct contact with Surrey Police headquarters.

All committee members and Coordinators are unpaid but are the eyes and ears of the community. They have a good working relationship with all borough Police teams, and this is invaluable in promoting the good work carried out by them. But it is not just the Police, as we Coordinate programmes and activities with the borough council neighbourhood teams.

Key to the working of Neighbourhood Watch is the creation of Watches, both at the street level (the traditional method) and at the area/village/town/community level using social media-based Watches. But you do not need to belong to a Watch to benefit from Neighbourhood Watch or contribute to the safety of your fellow citizens. By registering with Neighbourhood Watch nationally, you will become part of the wider community, and you can choose to progress to become a member of an existing Watch or set up a Watch in your street/community.

Surrey boroughs

map of surrey

Each borough in Surrey has its own Neighbourhood Watch team developing its own way of working to suit the local people. Despite being a relatively small county, it is quite densely populated, and the boroughs benefit from operating autonomously. Due to their size and demographics, Waverley Neighbourhood Watch is split east and west, and Mole Valley Neighbourhood Watch is split north and south.

The borough teams hold regular meetings with their Police Safer Neighbourhood Team inspectors and assist the Police with initiatives and improvement programmes. The Borough Council neighbourhood teams are also invaluable for improving the wellbeing of residents when it comes to issues that are outside the core Police activities. These can include litter, abandoned cars, noisy neighbours, and so on – all activities that can blight our lives but are better managed by the local authority rather than the Police.

Surrey Neighbourhood Watch has led the way in the UK with introducing social media as an important method of communicating with the residents. The street-based Watches remain the core, but crime does not stop “at the end of the street”, and wider communities are better served through social media, such as Facebook. Social-media-based Watches can have many thousands of members, and this makes them ideal for estates, communities, and villages where everyone benefits from the ‘instant’ 2-way communication between the Police/council and the residents.

Contact details:

Chair of Surrey Neighbourhood Watch Association, Alan Howell, chair@surreynhw.org.uk

Alan Howell

Secretary of Surrey Neighbourhood Watch Association, Mike Fox, Mike.Fox2@ntlworld.com

Mike Fox

 

MSA of Surrey Neighbourhood Watch Association, Clayton Locke, msa@surreynhw.org.uk

Clayton Locke

 

Useful links

  • Surrey Police - www.surrey.police.uk
    • Urgent, serious, or time is of the essence (even if not ‘serious’) – Ring 999
    • Not serious, or time is not of the essence but you want to speak to an officer – Ring 101
    • As above but want to do it onine - www.surrey.police.uk/ >> “live Chat” link bottom right of screen (you will be ‘talking’ to the same Police team that receives 999/101 calls)
      • For anything non-urgent where you do not need to speak to an officer, www.surrey.police.uk/ >> “Report”
      • Use this method to: report an incident / crime (time not of essence); report ASB, fraud and lost or found property
      • To tell the Police about something you have seen or heard that is, or potentially is, a crime, or to provide addition information on an existing crime/incident: www.surrey.police.uk >> “Tell us about”
    • Surrey Police: Facebook / Twitter
  • Crimestoppers: Report crime, 100% anonymously
  • Surrey Trading Standards
  • Surrey CC: for street lighting, potholes, highways

Surrey Police ‘Beat’ on Facebook / Twitter

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