Junior wardens clean up neighbourhood

When Liz Broadley became Neighbourhood Manager in May 2004, there wasn’t even a Neighbourhood Watch scheme in the area. There are now more than 50 across North Halifax and local school children are helping the council meet its local area agreement objectives for street and environmental cleanliness.

The junior warden programme started in 2005 and now runs in all the primary schools in North Halifax. Broadley recalls:

"It started as a very simple way of getting in touch with children in primary schools, and getting their ideas about how they wanted their community to evolve, what they liked best and what they were less confident about."

Children were given disposable cameras to photograph their area and encouraged to come up with ideas of how they'd like things to change. Now each school recruits its own junior wardens – mostly children in Years 5 and 6 – who set an agenda for how their school can help clean up the local environment. The Neighbourhood Management team help them access local services – such as the fire service, police or council Street Cleaning team – to help them plan and take appropriate action.

Junior Wardens are helping the council meet its objectives for improved street and environmental cleanliness (levels of graffiti, litter, detritus and fly-posting). Working as Inspectors they go out with the street cleaning team to help them assess the local area and plan appropriate action. Broadley says:

"That's been a really successful little campaign. Last year we had 36 junior warden NI 195 Inspectors doing work with us. And now that's rolling out again to another area of Calderdale."

Another initiative that has had dramatic results is''Flag and spray' – a project to clean up dog dirt. Junior Wardens go out with the council street cleansing team and look for dog dirt. When they find it, they circle it with biodegradable paint and plant a long-sticked flag next to it. Broadley says the visual impact is quite striking.

"When you look across an area you can see all these flags sticking up to show how much canine nastiness there is around. At times when the junior wardens have done that, we have noticed the problem tends to go down."