Volunteers go on street patrol in their neighbourhood to prevent crime in Failsworth
- Residents set up their own patrols after an increase in crime
- Facebook group established to bring community together
- Hundreds respond to message to support Failsworth Street Patrol
Volunteers from Failsworth are pulling together to help tackle crime in their local community.
Local resident Paul Wadsworth saw that there had been a surge of crime throughout the lockdown period this year and decided to do something about it.
Posting on Facebook community groups for the area, thousands of people commented and liked his posts and agreed that something needed to be done to make their community feel safe.
Paul then decided to do a night patrol with his dog to see if it could help.
From this Failsworth Street Patrol was born and quickly gained interest of the local people.
Gemma, a volunteer of the patrol group said: “We now have 23 volunteers, including four administrators, who all work full time jobs alongside this.
“We have no less than six volunteers out at a time, mainly in pairs, both on foot and in vehicles, doing shifts between 11pm-6am, every night.”
Failsworth Street Patrol has grown quickly and the public are already seeing a decrease in crime in the area.
Gemma said: “We want to make it clear that we’re not trying to do the job for the emergency services, they’ve been fantastic when we’ve reported information for them, the street patrol is only there to create a presence and prevent crime, rather than tackling it after it’s already happened.”
Gemma added : “We have a goal of £5k, we want to use this to hopefully get vehicles and equipment for the patrol team so our volunteers aren’t out of pocket, plus we hope to do other activities that will spread across and help the community.”