A morning with community wardens
This morning, as part of wider projects, we spent the morning with two of the community wardens (Kendra and Becky) of Horden. We followed and documented them as they went about their usual jobs which include spotting (and reporting) fly tipping, picking up used needles, dealing with anti-social behaviour, dealing with abandoned/burnt out cars, and handling other community issues.
We get there and rubbish is… everywhere. The wardens have to check inside to see if there’s anything to identify the person or people who might have dumped it. If they find any they make a record of it and mark it as under investigation, which means following up on who did the fly tipping and having another team come and take it away.
There are lots of reasons why there might be bags of rubbish, it’s not always just been fly-tipped. Some residents have had bins stolen and so they’ll put bags out for collection instead. The wardens always talk to the people involved to see what the circumstances are, and if they need to they can fine people or it can even go to court if the person won’t engage with the team to explain.
I asked if there’s ever anything horrible in the litter and Becky told me there are sometimes rats in the bags(!) so it’s best to give the bags a little nudge with your foot first to make sure there’s nothing in there. Usually it’s just regular household waste being thrown out, like old food, packaging, old clothes, and that sort of thing.
Used needles are a hazard of the job. Some of the yards of empty properties are used as shelter by people who discard them, often uncovered. With prick-proof gloves, a grabber, and a sharps bucket, the teams collect these to dispose of safely.
We’ve spent a lot of time in Horden and the neighbouring East Durham Coast villages, and the effects of deindustrialisation couldn’t be clearer, particularly in the old terraced streets that were former miners’ homes. Now, many have been bought up as part of property portfolios by groups based in London, or Birmingham. People with zero connection to the area, who don’t much care what state the buildings get into.
This is fairly representative of many of the empty properties. It’s owned by someone out of the area and so every time something happens, it takes so long for the landlord to communicate with the wardens, council, and police, that the problems just stack up. The house next door had been burnt out and this house had been boarded up several times only for it to be re-broken into immediately afterwards. The landlord put a new kitchen in and it was stolen that same night. It’s also being used as a popular fly-tipping spot.
Although the streets are fairly quiet, dogs bark incessantly from the back alleys, mostly irritated at us disturbing them, I think.
We bump into the occasional person coming back from the shops or walking their dog, they all seem to know (and like) Becky and Kendra, everyone says hello and is pleasant. This is one of the important things about having the same wardens for the same area. The locals come to know and trust them and that helps hugely when it comes to the wardens being able to do their jobs, particularly when that can involve needing to write someone up or issue a fine.
The problems with Horden and other deindustrialised towns and villages are too complicated and numerous to go into in a simple photo blog, so I won’t try. But, what I will say is that community wardens are an essential part of these areas. Their job is a bit of a conveyor belt... no sooner have they cleared one problem than another pops up, and if the streets look great on Friday then you can bet by Monday it will be strewn with litter again and the wardens will have their work cut out for them once more.
It’s clear they really care about the communities they’re serving though, and they told us that they do this for the people who want the place they live to be better, to improve. Wardens are a point of contact for people who live here, they attend residents’ meetings so they can keep up with what’s going on, they’re a familiar face offering reassurance on the streets, and sometimes, they’re a person who will just stop and listen. And for someone who may feel increasingly isolated from their community, that might be the most important part of the job.