The County Council is currently consulting internally with staff and unions on changes to the Neighbourhood Wardens, Education and Enforcement teams. They deal with a huge range of issues from going into schools to educate about crime and anti-social behaviour to dealing with littering, flytipping and dog fouling problems on our streets. At present the service is still not balanced across County Durham with some areas having more wardens than others and different staff having different hours.

To give an indication of just how much work they have to do, flytipping alone cost Durham County Council £1.28M to deal with over the last two years. The work of the neighbourhood wardens and education team in Framwellgate Moor has been a major part of the reduction in littering problems I have been working on in recent years, but it is an ongoing problem and along with the Police and police community support officers could not have been achieved without this part of the council. Officers recently spent a week in Fram School on education lessons, one of which I attended, and it was clear that it was invaluable and successful. We have also spent a lot of time at New College on recycling and education projects.

I am pushing to make sure that proper consultation with all partners takes place to ensure that if changes do take place, which is probable, that the best solution possible is put in place as there are clear concerns that the service could be reduced. Equally some changes could actually improve the service particularly in the evening in some areas where working with the police, wardens can help to tackle anti-social behaviour.

I have asked that Parish/Town councils and the Area Action Partnerships are consulted as soon as possible as they only meet once a month. I have also asked that County Councillors are updated and do not see the final proposals in a report to Cabinet when it is too late to make any changes.