Street Warden News

I have been a Street Wardens for nearly a year now and it is a job I enjoy very much but people often ask me what it is I actually do in my job, so I have written the following to give everybody a better idea about the role of Street Wardens.

My day starts at 8.00am and the first job is an environmental check around our patrol area, the sort of things that I am looking for are, discarded drug users needles, which we dispose of, rubbish (fly tipping and split refuse sacks etc), broken/loose paving slabs, damage to property, e.g. seats and bins, which have been damaged or pushed over, traffic bollards, damage to kerbstones, manhole covers (various, water, electric, highways), abandoned shopping trolleys, diesel spillages, damaged street signs. I check the underpasses for flooding or items that have been discarded i.e. street signs, traffic cones and shopping trolleys. Checking buildings after stormy weather (gutters, tiles and aerials) is also part of this patrol.

After early patrol  I return to the office and report these items to the various authorities, i.e. Council, Highways, supermarkets, property owners, police, etc. Minor incidents that can be cleaned up quickly such as split sacks, dog fouling, pigeon mess and minor damage will be passed to the Street Janitor who will get started on them straight away. He will also react to any spillages or fouling during the day. Anything I come across that was reported previously will be followed up after 24 hours, but on most occasions the Borough Council Services and refuse collectors will respond on the same day.

Once the "environmentals" have been reported I will start my daily routine around the area and by this time the shops are all open and I start by visiting them and checking the staff are o.k , this is particularly appreciated in the smaller shops where only one person might be working.  We work very closely with CCTV, store detectives, shop staff and the police who are all linked by radio as part of the ShopSafe scheme. The shops can all communicate with each other allowing everyone in the scheme to know of the whereabouts of any known shoplifters in the town. We are sometimes called to shops that have had fraudulent cards passed to them or to identify if suspected person is a know shop lifter as the ShopSafe scheme has an exclusion system so that if a person is caught stealing in one shop and are then banned they are automatically banned from the other shops in the scheme for six months. Other ways we keep in touch with the Town retailers is by patrolling the various outlets as our presence and distinctive uniform may deter possible offenders.

During the day I am constantly on the look out for anything that may cause distress to every day users of the town centre, checking the park and public toilets for anti-social behaviour e.g. stopping children in park skateboarding over the war memorial or reminding people about the byelaw that prevents alcohol being consumed in the street. We try to keep the drinking of alcohol within the Town centre to a minimum.  Also aggressive begging as this can sometimes be intimidating. We are taught to be vigilant regarding terrorist attacks so I am always on the lookout for any thing out of the ordinary that may require closer inspection. 
 
I am often asked for information and during the summer in particular we are often approached by the visiting tourists, who will ask for directions to the nearest bank, bus station, post office, railway station, the seafront and even estate agents!  For example, a gentleman from Kent approached me last week and asked if I might send him the local newspaper with all the local property in, which I did, as he was thinking of buying a house here.

Other incidents we have had to deal with are the can banks being pushed over, the rubbish bins being set a light and helping injured persons – we have often been the first on the scene after an incident and can radio for the emergency services through the CCTV operator - for example a man who had been stabbed and we remained with him until the ambulance arrived, another time when a young teenager had collapsed, the worse for wear from either drugs or alcohol, we are trained in first aid which we give if needed and wait with the person until the ambulance arrives.

On other occasions we will respond to requests for help from other agencies e.g. from the police who could put up a mentally ill lost person or missing child, sometimes a child has been found and we have to find it’s parents! Sometimes the police ask us to keep an eye open for wanted persons, so that if they are seen we would report straight back to the police, and then they can make an arrest. CCTV may have observed a window left open in a car and they ask us to attend.  The reason the window has been left open is just sometimes that the driver has forgotten and when you attend you think yes I know why that’s open, as a big Alsatian peers back at you! Other work we are trained in is that of stewards for events in the Market Place, i.e. firework displays, fayres and the visit from Father Christmas and his Reindeer.

I know I haven’t mentioned everything about my job but I know from comments made by the people who live and work in the town centre that they do feel safer for the Street Wardens being there and I feel that this was summed up the other evening whilst I was standing in the Market Place when I overheard a young boy say to his Mum "What’s that man doing Mummy?"
"He’s patiently watching to make sure that everybody is behaving themselves" was her reply.