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Community Ventures Limited, Middlesbrough |
 Parts of Middlesbrough rank among the most deprived areas of the UK.
Chemicals, steel and heavy industries once provided jobs here, but
today there are communities where unemployment has been a way of life
for several generations.
In these deprived areas, there are relatively high levels of crime, particularly burglary. This is one of the issues that Community Ventures (CVL) works to address. CVL is structured as a charity with six social enterprise businesses providing security, human resources, management, regeneration and health and safety consultancy services. An objective for CVL is to improve community safety and generate social and economic benefits.
One of the six businesses, Complete Security Europe Ltd specialises in security guarding, CCTV monitoring and alarms systems. CVL put in a bid to the ACF so it could expand this business, and it was awarded £250,000.
‘We allocated this to a community alarms project,’ says Bob Morrell, group operations manager. ‘We achieved match funding from the European Regional Development Fund, and another £200,000 from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, which brought us up to £700,000.’
CVL was aware that many people in particularly deprived areas were worried about crime, and the alarms project aimed to install alarms into their homes. The alarms would actually be monitored by a base station, which meant that if they were activated, they would be acted upon, with the police attending if necessary.
‘The clients we were targeting for this would not normally have the finances to fund such an alarm system,’ says Bob. ‘Especially one as advanced as this, using wireless systems.’
Clients for the alarms were selected by referral via the police and housing associations, with a particular focus on single parents and the elderly. Often, these would be people who had already been burgled or lived in a high-risk area.
‘We followed up with a survey,’ says Bob. ‘And 88% said they felt safer. We’ve had really positive feedback. Burglaries have already dropped by about 20%, and whole communities feel safer because of this.’
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