Major league security provider The Corps of Commissionaires is playing a central role in a new Home Office-backed community wardens programme covering the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
As part of the scheme, a permanent team of eight wardens has been detailed to patrol the Collingwood Housing Estate as well as others throughout the Bethnal Green area in a bid to curtail crime and anti-social behaviour.

Before the scheme started, each of the wardens was subject to an intensive four-week training course, covering such areas as communication and presentation skills, customer service, conflict management, first aid, powers of arrest and the use of reasonable force, crime prevention techniques, professional witness duties, cultural awareness (five members of the team are Bengali speaking, which sits neatly with the local populace) and observation skills.

“We were delighted to be chosen to provide wardens for what is an extremely ambitious initiative,” said The Corps’ managing director Francis Peck. “It’s far removed from being a conventional security contract, and has necessarily involved much close liaison work with both the Council and the police.”