Editorial: Guardian project proves its worth

Rotorua's City Safe guardians took to the city's streets just two months ago. Already the feedback on the patrols has been encouraging.

Five guardians are on a seven-month pilot project funded by the Rotorua District Council and Ministry of Justice.

The project came about after more than 300 businesses signed a petition asking the council to part-fund the project saying they were sick of antisocial behaviour, crime and intimidation on the city's streets.

Many of those businesses must now be pleased they took that proactive step in improving not only safety on our streets, but also the perception of safety on our streets.

A survey, reported here, showed more than 80 per cent of 113 businesses interviewed thought the City Safe project was having a positive impact on perceptions of safety in the city.

So people are feeling safer, but more importantly the project can be seen to have made an actual positive difference to safety as well.

As reported, council community safety projects officer Amy Duckett has cited examples related by shopkeepers and police of the guardians reducing shoplifting and helping to catch criminals.

Four weeks ago, one month into the trial, Ms Duckett told The Daily Post feedback on the guardians had been positive and that they had stopped a number of incidents from escalating.

And the majority view of those spoken to for our Street View poll was that they're doing a great job in keeping the city safe.

It's clear from public reaction to various instances of city crime and antisocial behaviour that many in Rotorua feel enough is enough. This scheme is our civic and business leaders doing something about it.

Even though the project is only two months in, hopefully councillors going into the coming week's budget discussions will recognise its value in any decisions about future funding.