Say Neighbourhood Watch to most people and it will conjure up an image of twee gatherings and curtain-twitching. But this is an image Wiltshire Police is keen to bury this Neighbourhood Watch week as it calls upon the community-spirited to be the new faces of a scheme in Swindon.

“It’s not being nosy, it’s not curtain twitching and it’s not spying on your neighbours,” said Inspector Nick Bancroft, of Wiltshire Police’s Citizen Focus team.

“We’ll be the first to admit that when we make inquiries we don’t always get it right. In order to be sensitive and efficient within communities we need to have an open relationship with the people living there.

“Neighbourhood Watch is one way we can have contact with residents who can tell us information which may help us look into incidents or make inquiries more effectively than we maybe would without that neighbourhood knowledge.

“It’s a way of improving public confidence and returning to that sense of neighbourliness we don’t see so much anymore.”

The main purpose of Neighbourhood Watch is to strengthen community ties by encouraging residents to look out for one another, particularly with regard to those who are elderly or considered vulnerable.

Read more details here.