A FACEBOOK group launched to revive Stourport’s Neighbourhood Watch scheme has defied all expectations since its launch in November.

Stourport, like many other towns and cities across the country, has had an active Neighbourhood Watch scheme for many decades. But like many other areas, the levels on support for the programme has been on a decline in recent years.

Craig Cox, who helped create the page, said: “Much of this decline could be because, as peoples lives have become busier and more demanding, it has become more and more difficult to engage with group meetings like the quarterly sessions held in Stourport for the Neighbourhood Watch street level scheme coordinators.

“The group meetings were originally set-up to allow two way communications between people who were members of street level neighbourhood watch schemes and the local law enforcement teams, however this communication was slow and relatively ineffective, and relied on coordinators being able to pass message in both directions.

“During 2015, the coordinators who had managed and coordinated the group meetings for Stourport stepped down from their roles for personal reasons, and as no replacement could be found, something new was needed.

“It was decided in October 2015 to give Facebook a try to see if it could help to keep the neighbourhood watch communication going in the absence of the regular meetings, on November 19, the Facebook page was launched.”

Since its launch, the Facebook page has attracted more than 1,000 followers, with Stourport residents regularly interacting with the page.

The page posts regular updates about incidents in the area, alerting residents to burglaries, assaults and vehicle crime, to name a few.

Mr Cox added: “It is going better than we expected.

“Some posts reach about 100 people, while others can reach about 500. We have had a couple of posts which gone quite seriously high.

“One post reached 48,000 people – there’s not that many people living in Stourport. We were getting 76 people commenting on it, providing information and it was shared more than 600 times.

“It definitely seems to be working to get the message out there. We are reaching a lot more people, a lot more rapidly. It kind of gets the message out there to much broader audiences.

“I would like to see other areas like Kidderminster and Bewdley or further afield how we have done this and if it could work for them.”

To find the page, search for ‘Stourport Neighbourhood Watch’ on Facebook.