"Where are our wardens?" - Jeffery

12.01.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Thu 5th Oct 2006

Wardens could help prevent graffiti

Councillor Owen Jeffery, who represents Thatcham South and Crookham, is again asking why there are still no wardens on the streets of Thatcham after months of negotiations.

Councillor Jeffery commented:

"I am immensely disappointed by the manana approach of the Tories at West Berkshire Council. The money set aside for this has just been sitting and gathering dust when it could have been put to use elsewhere. Both funding and agreement have been in place for many months - the delays demonstrate how little the Tory administration cares about the needs of Thatcham."

A report to July's meeting of the Council's Executive announced that a district-wide strategy for Wardens and Community Support Officers is to be developed. However, the report indicated that only Thatcham, Greenham, Wash Common, Tilehurst and Calcot merited a Warden scheme. A similar report produced two years ago for the Liberal Democrats concluded "From the statistical evidence and based on discussions with partner agencies, it appears that the areas that would benefit from a Warden scheme are Newbury, Thatcham, Tilehurst/Calcot, Theale, Burghfield, Lambourn, Hungerford and Pangbourne".

Councillor Jeffery continued:

"Not only are the wardens delayed, it also seems they have been dramatically reduced across the district. We have seen the summer holidays fly past without the security of the wardens on the Thatcham streets - they might only just be in place for the Christmas period! This simply isn't good enough - we have missed out on 5 months of warden security in Thatcham. The list of things which wardens could have helped prevent is endless - from destroying flowers and knocking down a wall in Westfield road, to youths digging up the paths and grassed areas of the Mount Road play area. Why have we had to wait so long?"