By Charlene Gatt
MARIBYRNONGCity Council’s Wattle Ward’s new “super” Neighbourhood Watch model is stepping outside its boundaries in more ways than one.
The new area – which was expanded last month to border Cemetery Rd, Geelong Rd, Williamstown Rd and the West Gate Freeway – is poised to introduce neighbourhood-friendly initiatives to bring the community together.
A coffee club and free monthly screenings at Yarraville’s Sun Theatre are just some of the measures the new model hopes to introduce.
Neighbourhood Watch is also in the process of arranging a council bus to take elderly people and widows and widowers to the cemetery to visit deceased loved ones.
Service area co-ordinator Norm Reed said the group wanted to make the new model “a lot more personal”.
“It’s more than community policing – it’s also about community connectedness,” Wattle Ward councillor Michael Clarke said.
The new model will be on trial for a year and could be adopted across the municipality if it is successful.
More than 30 residents turned up to the group’s first meeting at the end of last month.
Mr Reed said graffiti and the recent spate of car vandalism around Kingsville emerged as the residents’ main concerns.
He urged more people to speak up and get involved.
“A lot of problems came out of the woodwork, I couldn’t believe that that many people had so many dramas.
“Neighbourhood Watch is a victim of its own success. It did its job, and the people all backed off and now crime has gone through the roof.”
The model will publish mun-icipality-specific crime statistics on the Maribyrnong City Council website.
Footscray Police Inspector Ian Geddes said the car attacks had partially reinvigorated what had been a dormant Neighbourhood Watch area.
Insp Geddes said the new model would run in tandem with new neighbourhood policing teams that break up the municipality by ward.
The new policing strategy will see each team working closely with residents and business owners in their respective wards to gauge levels of community safety.
The next Wattle Ward Neighbourhood Watch meeting will be held at 10.30am on 20 September at the Footscray-Seddon Bowling Club on Francis St.
