1. Natural Neighbourhoods
December 2010

2. Police and partners use wards
For
Political
And
Statistical
Reasons

3. Residents don’t recognise wards -
they have no emotional link
However…
Each ward
contains distinct
demographic
and geographic
communities =
Natural
Neighbourhoods

4. Residents have an emotional link to
their Natural Neighbourhood
"I'm only interested in MY neighbourhood"

5. Each Natural Neighbourhood has
different needs
And accesses information differently

6. We have to ask residents!
Natural
Neighbourhoods
can't be
identified using
maps or
databases

7. The Aim
If we can identify natural
neighbourhoods and talk to
residents in a way that they prefer
about things that interest them…
We can harness the power of local
people to help us drive down crime

8. The Benefits
Natural Neighbourhoods will…
• Produce intelligence-led engagement
• Reduce waste and cost nothing
• Increase accountability and public confidence
• Stimulate volunteering & partnership
• Enable problem-orientated-partnership
• Increase intelligence
• Reduce crime and anti-social behaviour

9. The Method
• The Safer Neighbourhoods Team will use their
knowledge of the ward to identify natural
neighbourhoods.
• The SNT will ask local groups what they perceive to
be natural neighbourhoods.
• The community will be asked to describe what types
of communication they respond to such as SNT
• Using a dip sample method some residents will be
surveyed.

10. Greenwich West SNT divide their
ward into patrol areas based on:
Demographic
groups
&
Physical
boundaries:
roads
parks etc.

11. "Best fit"
• The Sergeant, using a 'best fit' approach, divides
the identified natural neighbourhoods between
their PCSOs
• Using consumer data bases and the advice of
our community the PCSOs will design a bespoke
communication method for each of their
neighbourhoods.
• We will review each communication on a 3 month
basis

12. Natural Neighbourhoods is a
communication strategy
There is no additional work or cost: "It's our normal
work but we are doing it in a cost effective way"
It's ground breaking: Some police forces and local
authorities claim to use natural neighbourhoods but,
in practice, they relied on crime or deprivation maps
and did not consult local residents
We still analyse crime as normal: at a ward level