Social Action

Neighbourhood Watch Press Release

Neighbourhood Watch and the police sign up their one millionth household to continue their mission to build safer neighbourhoods across England and Wales

Key messages:

  1. Neighbourhood Watch and the police have worked in partnership to sign up one million people across VISAVs Neighbourhood Alert community messaging platform.
  2. Neighbourhood Alert provides secure, private communication with timely and relevant messages between members of Neighbourhood Watch and the police.
  3. Neighbourhood Watch and VISAV have worked together to build safer neighbourhoods for over fifteen years.
  4. Reaching one million households is hugely significant and demonstrates the growing interest across the country in joining a modern Neighbourhood Watch and being a registered member or supporter.

Strapline: After working across all the police forces within England and Wales for the last decade and a half, Neighbourhood Watch are delighted to reach one million households who share their information with them on the membership database and messaging system, Neighbourhood Alert.

The central database for Neighbourhood Watch members and supporters, built and hosted by VISAV, has reached one million households, a record milestone. As a charitable movement, to be able to directly gather views with secure surveys and communicate crime prevention advice, local crime information, community cohesiveness, and support to vulnerable people, is an incredible achievement. According to the last member survey, (84,000 respondents, March 2021) on average, messages sent to members on the platform are forwarded or directly shared via social media, word of mouth, newsletters and meetings, with a further 18.4 people, giving the network a total national potential reach of 18.4 million people!

Consistent and reliable dialogue with households across England and Wales is fundamental to the running of Neighbourhood Watch locally and as a movement. It allows for seamless connection across England and Wales, including between local groups, individuals, and the central support team. Sharing resources, good practice, updates, and guidance through the Neighbourhood Alert database empowers Neighbourhood Watch members and supporters to make positive change in their community and take action to make their local area a better place to live.

John Haywards-Cripps, CEO of Neighbourhood Watch, said: “Being able to directly communicate, support and share advice and information with over one million households across England and Wales confirms that we are the authoritative voice on community-based crime prevention and are a recognised contributor to community health and wellbeing. Without the continuous support and expertise of VISAV we would not have been able to achieve this.”

Mike Douglas, Product Director of VISAV and co-founder of Neighbourhood Alert said: “It’s a testimony to modern policing to have 32 UK police forces working alongside Neighbourhood Watch to sign people up to the Neighbourhood Alert platform. People want local, timely, relevant information and the power of the system enables those local systems to combine and have an enormous national reach. The platform is known locally by different names to reflect the communities it serves but has a robust central, secure database. Data privacy is key to the continued success, and we know that members trust the platform, appreciate being able to use it for free, without the usual data privacy trade-off and they value the connection it provides with their local neighbourhood policing teams.”

Neighbourhood Watch is proud to continue its partnership of over a decade with VISAV. Since the partnership was first established, the Alert database has gone from strength to strength, and has continued to facilitate secure and smooth communication between organisations such as Neighbourhood Watch, the Police, Fire & Rescue Services, Action Fraud, the general public, and supporters.

Sponsorship of the National Neighbourhood Watch Conference 2022

As part of our ongoing support for Neighbourhood Watch throughout England & Wales, and in recognition of the many thousands of voluntary hours that Neighbourhood Watch Coordinators dedicate to keeping their local communities safe, we were very proud to be the headline sponsors for the 2022 National Neighbourhood Watch Conference that took place in London in May.


Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator Data Protection Training

Ongoing training ensures that the hundreds of Neighbourhood Watch Coordinators throughout England & Wales are able to continue their valuable, voluntary contribution to their local communities. We have committed to sponsoring the cost of ongoing data protection training for the next 12 months to help ensure that all the activities carried out by coordinators remain compliant with current GDPR legislation.

VISAV have sponsored the Sherwood (Phone Box) Book Share which is now up and running!

Toni Price - Sherwood resident, Nottingham community worker, mum, friend and avid reader - sadly died in May 2021. Before she died, she made arrangements with Lisa and Mike of Sherwood Business Centre to buy a red phone box as a dedication to her mum, Pat Price, and as a gift to the community she loved so much.

Lisa and Mike agreed to install it and with Toni, their vision was to turn the vintage phone box into a Book Share for the Sherwood community to use and enjoy. They have also overseen the installation of shelving to house the books, the box will also be connected up to electricity so it can be kept securely closed at night.
The phone box contains posters with instructions about how to use it - essentially just asking people not to leave too many books as it’s only a small space!
A fantastic team of Book Share Stewards have volunteered to maintain and care for the phone box. If you would like to volunteer as a Book Share Steward, and help to support this wonderful community project, then please email: sherwoodbookshare@hotmail.com Thank you!