A NEIGHBOURHOOD watch group is calling for a new drive to make their area a ‘no cold caller zone.’

At a meeting of the Council’s Area Two committee on Tuesday night, Alex Bruce and Lori Shearer of the Monkhams Neighbourhood Watch group told councillors they were concerned about bogus callers.

Mrs Shearer said: “We have a lot of elderly people in the area who are happy to trust anybody and it disturbs us to meet with neighbours and hear about how they open their doors again and again.

“Our number one priority is to turn Monkhams into a no cold call zone.

“This is an initiative that all of Redbridge wants to embrace but we need it right now because every time we meet with residents when we walk around, they all say ‘I had a cold caller’.”

Last month the council launched a pilot scheme in Goodmayes, Seven Kings and Chadwell Heath to tackle bogus calling.

Selected households in those areas have been issued with stickers telling cold callers they are not welcome.

The initiative is being run by the Redbridge Bogus Caller Partnership (RBCP), an organisation led by the council’s Trading Standards team.

It is made up of the fire brigade, police and a range of community, charity and healthcare groups including University of the Third Age and Victim Support.

RBCP says it has helped reduce recorded cases of distraction burglaries from 138 in 2006 to just 33 in 2011.

But at Tuesday’s meeting  residents and councillors expressed concerns that burglary as a whole was still on the rise.

Cllr Paul Canal of Bridge ward told the meeting: “I have had 3.5 per cent of my homes in Bridge Ward burgled in the last 12 months which means over the course of a decade one in three of my residents will be burgled and that is not acceptable.”

And he added: “It is a war and I think we need to stand up and fight.”

Cllr Canal proposed that October’s meeting of the Area Two Committee be themed around the topics of crime and public safety, an idea which won support from his fellow councillors.

Roding Ward councillor Gwyneth Deakins urged anyone with particular concerns over crime to contact their local ward councillors in advance of the meeting which is scheduled for October 2 in Sir James Hawkey Hall, Woodford Green.

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