OWL spreads its wings across north Wales
17/07/2012
A communications tool which is aimed at
supporting communities to prevent and detect crime is being rolled
out across north Wales.
Online Watch Link (OWL) is a unique
internet-based system that supports, invigorates and administers
community based groups and Watch schemes such as Neighbourhood
Watch, Business Watch and Farm Watch. It enables members to be part
of a network that instantly shares information of incidents such as
crime or rogue traders using a variety of media including email,
voice mail and text messages.
The scheme, which is free to join, was
launched in Flintshire back in August 2009 and has been a
phenomenal success. It was extended to cover Wrexham in 2010 to
date thousands of householders have signed up to OWL.
“OWL is a great tool for the police, their
partners and local residents as a means of passing relevant
information quickly and safely,” said Libby Lee from North Wales
Police’ Community Safety Team.
“It’s an interactive tool that promotes a
two-way communication system between police and their communities.
It also helps local residents to prevent and detect crime, support
one another and be more aware of what is going on in their
area.
“Once a resident has signed up to the scheme
they will receive localised and relevant crime alerts and timely
crime prevention advice which will be sent out by the OWL
administrator.
She added: “OWL can only further enhance our
capabilities in respect of supporting each other and making our
communities safer and I hope the initiative goes from strength to
strength.”
Crime alerts will include information on cold
callers, burglaries, postal scams amongst many others. Individual
recipients can be targeted, or larger groups such as streets,
wards, districts or specific schemes such as Farm Watch. In the
event of a local or national emergency – such as flooding, urgent
messages can be sent out at once to the public via OWL.
Assistant Chief Constable Gareth Pritchard
said: “OWL is an important tool to circulate information to reduce
and detect crime. It has developed very well in Flintshire
and Wrexham and we hope to see it successfully extended to cover
the rest of North Wales.”
For further information on OWL and other Watch
schemes in your area send an email to owl@nthwales.pnn.police.uk
or contact the North Wales Police Community Safety Team on 01745
588776.
If you would like to sign-up to OWL, which is
free of charge, log onto the website www.owl.co.uk/northwales