Describe your best practice
This March, Croydon Neighbourhood Watch Association launched our first ever Good Neighbour Guide to approximately half of the residents in the London Borough of Croydon. The guide aims to foster and help create a strong community spirit by offering suggestions and tips on how to be better neighbours, as well as signposting Croydon residents to the assistance available for common neighbourhood concerns such as parking problems and fly tipping. The guide also provides contact information for local police safer neighbourhood teams.

What did you do and why?
We published the guide in response to residents telling us they do not know who to go to when they have experienced a crime or anti-social behaviour.
It is designed to help people to be good neighbours, looking out for each other at a time when crime is of great concern. We often hear complaints from residents that they cannot get through to the police on the 101 phone number so we have tried to make the guide as user friendly as possible so that residents can easily find the phone number or email address of their local police.

Duration of the project
One year

What worked well?
We were pleased with the overall look of the booklet. We used the services of a local graphic designer to make the guide look as professional as possible so that people did not discard it or throw it away. The idea is that people will find it useful and keep it handy. We also asked for contributions and guidance from some of our coordinators with respect to content and what they felt should go into the guide.

How did you overcome any challenges?
The main challenges were keeping the guide simple and not too wordy. This meant limiting the amount of info that went into the guide.

How did you cover any costs?
We wrote to every single councillor in the borough asking them for financial support out of their community fund.

Force/ Borough area
LB Croydon

Contact us to find out more about this initiative