Neighbourhood watches must do more to protect communities given the poor state of policing in the country, says Bergvliet, Kreupelbosch and Meadowridge Watch chairman Brian Wilkinson.
“It is up to us to generate an income and put our own security blanket around the area otherwise we are not going to get the support or action that is needed,” he said at the watch’s annual general meeting, which was held online on Wednesday May 24.
A security company, he added, was “merely a reactive entity” while the BKM Watch’s Special Response Team (SRT) was “proactive“, he added.
The watch started deploying its SRT officers more than a year ago to compensate for a decline in volunteer patrollers.
SRT officers are employed by the watch to protect the area as opposed to households. They are not linked to any armed response or alarm control room but act on reports that come through the Constantia Valley Information Centre or through the WhatsApp groups set up for patrollers.
“The exco decided that we would embark on a similar initiative that Constantia Watch was making use of. We finally started in the 21/22 financial year with our first officer and ran a trial with Constantia Watch where we paid a certain portion for x number of hours, and since then we’re happy to say that we are now up to two full-time officers,” Mr Wilkinson said
The use of the SRT Officers was “one of the reasons why crime stats have dropped to the extent that they have”, said Mr Wilkinson.
According to the watch’s reports, crime has decreased: “From 2015/16, we had 642 reported cases, in 2021, 344 incidents. And now, figures show 193 incidents. This is a decrease of 69% from 2015/16 or 43% reduction from 2021.”
Diep River police Vispol commander Captain Marius Voges said the Meadowridge area only made up 3.9% of all crimes reported to the precinct. However, for the last financial year, the area had seen 14 fewer cases of home break-ins, thefts, and thefts out of vehicles.
Kirstenhof police spokesperson Sergeant Deirdre Solomon said their crime stats for the Bergvliet and Kreupelbosch areas during the last financial year had seen a decrease in all crime categories.
BKM Watch would like to see the deployment of a third SRT Officer to provide 24-hour security throughout the year, but that could only happen through contributions from additional watch members.
The watch’s membership has risen from 3256 to 3261, from March 2022 to February 2023, according to the chairman’s report.
“We have 40 000 households in the BKM areas, so over 80% of our residents are actually members of BKM in some form or another. We would like to see this obviously increase going forward, but with people moving in and out of the area, this number does tend to remain pretty static throughout the past years that we’ve been measuring the membership,” said Mr Wilkinson.
“Our revenue collection in a fairly depressed economy has increased by almost 35%. We are now close to 1 000 contributing members in some way or another, which is a great step forward in helping us achieve our objectives that we have set out.”
In the meantime, expenditure on various watch initiatives over the past financial year increased by R271 000 or 22.4%
“The majority of the expenditure was based on R234 000 spent on our first full-time SRT officer and a second officer started in November 2022; R89 000 on motor vehicle depreciation, uniforms required by the second officer and the SRT salary costs; R21 000 on meetings patrollers supplies and training.
“Going forward for the year 2023 and 2024, are we keeping the same objectives as we had last year. We need to try and get another thousand households on board. Then this will actively cement the presence of the SRT officers in the area, and hopefully this can be achieved with the contributions of the community. Once we have this, we believe that we will have a force to be reckoned with in the BKM area,” Mr Wilkinson said
To learn more about BKM Watch, contact Beverley at 021 795 0330 or office@bkmwatch.org.za.
