[Acrylic-bob]

Thinking aloud - sort of - it strikes me that things were different before the the 60's because there was more of a sense of social cohesiveness; everyone in an area knew each other often because they worked in the same location and family members often lived close by. Maintaining a sense of Community was a lot easier then.

Now that families are often scattered far and wide and large numbers of people no longer work in one location it is that much more difficult. One of the things that ensured that your kids stayed on the straight and narrow was because if they strayed you knew that everyone at work would know about it and you would be the object of a great deal of gossip and significant looks or even worse if the offence was serious.

People are easier to control as a herd because they tend to police themselves. This perhaps comes close to the nub of what is lacking.

But in a fragmented and fragmenting society how do you foster this fading sense of Community, of belonging, of shared ownership and shared responsibility?

OK, what follows is one idea that I realise is so impractical that it would never work, it would depend on everyone gathering together and agreeing for one thing, which is never going to happen. But then again, similar things have worked in other places.

The Friends of Rhyddings Park, and every other park in the borough, are a good starting place. It is composed of people who care enough about a particular location to give up some of their time for the good of everyone and who are determined to put some energy and time into building rather than destroying, maintaining rather than ignoring.

What if we took that idea and applied it to other aspects of our communities?

If enough concerned residents could be found who were prepared to give up one evening a week it would not take much organisation to liase with the Police and HBC and form teams to patrol the streets and play areas just keep an eye on what is going on in the evenings and at weekends. Sort of like an unpaid, voluntary community warden scheme.

Perhaps they could also take our lovely councillors out with them. It should then follow that as the children of the locality get to know their wardens there would then be the opportunity for play, discussion, engagement and a degree of supervision which could prevent many situations developing into problems. I am sure that local business would be only too happy to contribute to any running costs that there might be.

Of course such a situation would be open to abuse. Any system is open to abuse. But one would hope that through liaison with the Police it would be minimalised if not entirely eliminated.

I realise that this also sounds a bit like I am advocating an alternative Police force, but what alternative is there when the police seem to find it much more entertaining to rush hither and thither in their cars with the go faster stripes and flashing lights and sirens that go woo-woo chasing speeding motorists ?