Neighbourhood Watch Schemes (Hansard, 21 July 1988)

§ 1. Mr. Riddick
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps have been taken to encourage co-operation between local authorities and neighbourhood watch schemes over the siting of neighbourhood watch zone signs on lamp posts and other prominent places; and if he will make a statement.

§ The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. John Patten)
The display, otherwise than on highway land, of signs for approved neighbourhood watch schemes now have deemed planning consent. Signs on trunk roads, for example on lamp posts, that do not cause a hazard to traffic or pedestrians get immediate approval from the Department of Transport. The display of signs on other roads is a matter for local highway authorities. I hope that they will follow the Department of Transport's lead.

§ Mr. Riddick
I welcome the Government's attempts to facilitate the siting of neighbourhood watch signs. Will the Minister tell the House whether local authorities are following the Government's positive lead? Is he aware that in West Yorkshire the number of schemes in operation has increased from 160 at the beginning of last year to well over 500 and that that should make a significant contribution to deterring the would-be vandal and the would-be burglar?

§ Mr. Patten
A few councils, alas, are not being co-operative with the neighbourhood watch movement, and that is very disappointing. The increase in the numbers of neighbourhood watch schemes in West Yorkshire in the past 12 months that my hon. Friend has reported to the House is very pleasing. There are now nearly 56,000 neighbourhood watch schemes in the country, a phenomenal increase of some 60 per cent. over the number a year ago.

§ Mr. Worthington
On the theme of crime prevention, and given the recent publication of further work by Professor Alice Coleman showing that the design of public housing is an important factor in influencing crime rates, will the Minister contact the Department of the Environment and urge that a great deal of money be spent on public housing, to reduce crime rates? Unless that money is spent, neighbourhood watch schemes will be merely cosmetic.

§ Mr. Patten
The work of Professor Alice Coleman is extremely interesting and the theme of designing out crime has been accepted by people of all political views and all architectural and planning views in this country. My right hon. Friend and I are in constant contact with the Department of the Environment. Indeed, I met my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Planning yesterday afternoon at 3 o'clock and that was one of the issues that we discussed. I hope that the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) is aware of the very substantial sums of money being spent by the Department of the Environment under the Estate Action scheme—£75 million this year has been devoted to crime prevention.

§ Mr. Hill
Will my hon. Friend call a meeting between the Southampton city council, the Hampshire chief constable and his Department to try to enable the neighbourhood watch scheme, with or without signs, to make some progress in the city of Southampton, which has a very high incidence of crime?

§ Mr. Patten
My hon. Friend raised that important point in his recent Adjournment debate, to which I replied. We are doing what we can to ensure that in Southampton, as in every other major city in the country, the neighbourhood watch movement continues to make the progress that this great citizens' movement is making throughout the country.