OLD ladies twitching at net curtains, jotting down car registration numbers in notebooks and weekly get-togethers for nosy neighbours is how many see Neighbourhood Watch schemes. Just nosy parkers with nothing better to do. Well apparently, it's not like that at all.

Barry Armitage is the co-ordinator for Neighbourhood Watch in south Warwickshire and it is his job to encourage communities to get schemes up-and-running and then guide them through setting up and running the watch.

The former bank manager is keen to dispel the old image of Neighbourhood Watch and promote a new ideal, which is as much about community as it is about crime busting.

"What we want is for people to come together, create a community and keep an eye on each other and each other's property.

"We are about eyes and ears, not vigilantes."

He said that Neighbourhood Watch was primarily about awareness, not just of looking for strangers or noting suspicious cars.

Neighbourhood Watch members are drilled in home security techniques, not just installing locks and alarms, but how best to protect property, what to do before a holiday and so on.

The benefits of Neighbourhood Watch are two-fold.

Knowledge that neighbours are aware and home and vehicle security is high can deter criminals, but there is also a feel-good factor - householders are confident that something is being done about crime, which prevents fear.

Neighbourhood Watch volunteers play a further important part in day-to-day crime detection and prevention with Caps, the Community Alert Programme System.

Caps is a new quick and efficient way of passing information from police to the public, which gears them up for any potential problem or issue on the horizon.

Information from police intelligence is taped and then broadcast to the telephones of co-ordinators and their deputies warning them of, for example, a spate of crimes in the area.

This allows the co-ordinators to pass on the information to other scheme members, which could prevent hundreds of crimes each year.

Mr Armitage's support role is as important as his setting-up of the schemes.

Although there is not all that much contact with the managers of the scheme after they have started up, there are newsletters distributed regularly, which have proved to be an excellent morale-booster.

"We incorporate local and national crime figures as well as Neighbourhood Watch information, it is important for people to see when the number of crimes is falling."

Being a Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator may sound like a full-time job, but Mr Armitage is keen to stress that volunteers come from all walks of life and the manhours required are minimal.

If you could spare some time to get the neighbours together for a Neighbourhood Watch scheme, call the watch office at Stratford police station on 01789 414111.