Background Information

Background Information on Exeter City Council's Community Patrol Service

Exeter City Council

In 1994, the City Council introduced a pilot Community Patrol Service. Two part time staff patrolled Council Housing estates outside the normal office hours during the evenings and at weekends.

Feedback from Tenant groups clearly indicated the value of the service in terms of public reassurance. Many people, particularly the elderly felt more secure as a result of the patrols. The opportunity to report problems as they occurred and to expect a near immediate response appeared to out weigh any limitations of the service. Enhanced security of Council property, particularly empty houses, further validated the experiment.

In 1996 the pilot scheme together with the existing Parks Patrols was consolidated into a new Community Patrol Service. Staffing numbers were increased to eight and the operational times extended from seven in the morning until midnight, daily, throughout the year. No longer restricted to Council housing areas the patrol was free to respond to problems throughout the City.

We sought to provide staff that were easily identifiable, approachable and ready to offer advice and assistance. We were very keen to ensure that their role was not confused with that of the police. Uniforms were designed to look distinct but in no way to mimic the police or security guard styling.

We soon discovered that public demand for assistance exceeded our expectation. In addition to nearly four thousand calls from the public, in the first year, colleagues within the Council were attracted to the benefit or reliable eyes an ears available at unlikely times of the day and night. Consequently monitoring and reporting on nuisance and events became a significant part of the patroller's role.

Far from strolling around chatting to the public, the patrol very quickly became a reactive group spending most of their evening and weekend duties dealing with complaint after complaint. The patrol had been the Councils front line out of hours response and has been called to attend everything from a bomb scare to a broken light fitting. By far the greatest number of complaints relate to the behaviour of children and youths. It is here that the patrol probably plays its most important role in the quality of life issues that fall outside the provisions of statute and regulation. These are important issues to those who are suffering yet problems that will recur and for which there is probably no lasting remedy. The patrol can offer some relief, comfort and in may cases, improvement.

The police refer an increasing number of complaints made to them, directly to the patrol. Mostly nuisance and petty harassment. Dog fouling is high on the public agenda. Enforcement of Byelaw and dog fouling regulations play an everyday part of the patroller's workload.

We have introduced a system of directed patrolling, linked to incident reports and referrals from a number of sources. This enables us to target our resources at areas where certain types of petty crime, anti social behaviour and other problems have been identified.

A Community Warden scheme concentrating on community related issues was recently piloted in specific areas of the high density accommodation to the north of the City.  Four Community Wardens were dedicated to St David's, St. James, Polsloe and Newtown and looked specifically at Anti Social behaviour, the fear of crime and community/environmental improvement issues. The wardens were facilitators. Their main aim was to empower residents to address issues of concern within their neighbourhood. This project ended at the beginning of 2004.

Such was the success of the Warden scheme that it was decided to increase the number of Community Patrollers to ten enabling them to continue city wide with this programme. Many Quality of Life issues can only be addressed in partnership. No one group or organisation may have the solution to a given problem but together, facilitated by the patrollers, an answer may be found.

The Patrollers are not there to intervene in public order offences. Drunkenness, aggression, criminal damage and the like are, and will remain, issues that the police alone can address. The role of the local authority is to identify the problem, gather intelligence and target the most appropriate resources to resolve the issue.

The Patrollers are not office based. If you ring them on 0845 351 1060 a message will be relayed to them and they will ring you back. Alternatively you can e-mail them using the link on the right of this page.