The Royal Borough of Maidenhead and Windsor is expanding its community wardens. The council cabinet in March approved plans to grow the team from 18 to 25; six extra wardens and a new team leader. They will continue to carry out patrols day and night (pictured, High Street) providing community engagement between residents, the council and the police; offering crime prevention advice; and having enforcement powers to tackle littering, dog fouling and anti-social behaviour. The wardens date from 2004. Their enforcement work incldues moving on touts at events such as Royal Ascot.
Jesse Grey, councillor and cabinet member for environmental services (including parking and flooding), said: “Our community wardens already do a fantastic job helping to keep our residents safe and making sure the needs of all our varied communities are being addressed. Expanding the team of community wardens will allow them to continue their community engagement and preventative work to support communities across the borough.
“They deal with a wide range of anti-social behaviours including everything from littering and dog fouling through to managing our busy town centres and working together with partners to make sure the night-time economy offer is safe for everyone to enjoy. The work of an expanded community warden team will strengthen the support they already offer to Thames Valley Police and Parish Councils in our borough and be complemented by our £1.3m investment into a state-of-the-art upgrade to our CCTV network.”
The expansion would continue the training of wardens through the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (CSAS). As anywhere in England, that could allow the wardens to use police-style powers such as making it an offence to give false details to a CSAS-accredited person, power to stop cycling on pavements and to request the surrender of alcohol if involved in anti-social behaviour.
The Royal Borough will work with the chief constable of Thames Valley Police who would be asked to authorise the use of such powers. The borough hopes for CSAS-accreditation from Thames Valley this summer. For background visit the council website.
