The Membership Support Administrator (MSA) for Neighbourhood Watch within North East Lincolnshire is Karl Elliott who works for Cleethorpes based charity VANEL (Voluntary Action North East Lincolnshire).
VANEL is part of HumberWatch – the Force Area Association for the Humberside Police Force area.
VANEL run a number of community safety initiatives including the support for local Neighbourhood Watch.
VANEL supports local existing Neighbourhood Watch Groups and has been successful in helping start up a few new groups over the past few years.
Neighbourhood Watch is not the only way to bring residents and neighbours in communities together, so VANEL also leads programmes around a ‘Neighbourhood Networking’ approach to support connections between people on matters as diverse as community safety or arts, crafts, conversation or other social themes. Currently a Neighbourhood Networking programme covering rural areas of North East Lincolnshire is funded through the National Lottery Community Fund.
VANEL hosts the website www.nelwatch.org.uk for community safety news and information, and sends out a regular e-newsletter around community safety matters.
Keeping Older People Safe (KOPS) is a programme across North East Lincolnshire led by VANEL and sharing safety advice with older people through newsletters; drop-ins; events and other partnership working.
Stay Safe Guides have been produced by VANEL/Karl with sponsorship from various funders (including Humberwatch in 2025) and are distributed across the borough through partners, projects and community venues. The Stay Safe guides contain a range of community safety advice to support residents. To date probably 15000 Stay Safe guides have been distributed.
VANEL delivers Scams/Fraud awareness sessions through funding from FraudWatch and have delivered nearly 60 sessions over the past 4 years to nearly 1200 local residents.
VANEL has supported recently funded community safety programmes in East Marsh (Safer Streets), West Marsh (also Safer Streets) and recently Nunsthorpe (Clear Hold Build). As a result of Clear Hold Build VANEL was able to use ARIS funding (Police Proceeds of Crime money) to help support an initiative to create a new Neighbourhood/Residents Forum for South Ward (South Together). The Forum provides community safety advice and works in partnership with other agencies to support the residents of South Ward directly. The Forum includes both face-to-face resident meetings as well as an online discussion website developed by VANEL.
Starting through the Safer Streets programmes, VANEL developed a programme to provide free items of household/personal safety equipment to residents across North East Lincolnshire. VANEL obtained further funding bit by bit via Big Local North Cleethorpes; through local Ward Councillor funding and then with funding from the Humberside Police and Crime Commissioner in order to expand the reach of this ‘giveaway’ project. Over the years, over 1500 households across North East Lincolnshire received items of equipment.
VANEL supported the development of two local Park Watch initiatives and has an ongoing programme to develop Allotment Watch sites in the area. Four Allotments are currently signed up as Allotment Watch groups (as of 2025) and this is continuing to be rolled out.
VANEL also has supported other groups and charities to apply for their own funding for community safety related initiatives. And in 2023 VANEL obtained funding from the Police and Crime Commissioner to experiment with hi-tech solutions to allotment safety on a site in Cleethorpes.
VANEL has introduced Neighbourhood Watch Information Points which are display stands including a wide range of community safety materials which are displayed in public venues where Neighbourhood Watch groups are less active. Each ‘hub’ allows reporting of local issues and links back to the nelwatch programmes. By the end of 2025 there should be 7 hubs across North East Lincolnshire.
Through the National Lottery supported Neighbourhood Networking programme VANEL has developed the Neighbours Together online discussion space to help bring neighbours together in an online safe space.
VANEL hosts Community Safety drop-ins with the Police from their offices and community hub at 82 Grimsby Road, Cleethorpes. VANEL has also organised several community safety day events and attends many others. Karl attends Police drop-ins and walkabouts when possible.
Using funding from ward councillors and other sources, VANEL has managed to design and print a wide range of community safety related materials which are then distributed around the community. These have included Stay Safe guides; ‘report it’ postcards; ‘no cold caller’ window stickers; ‘no trick or treat’ posters; Little Book of Big Scams booklets; Police ‘securing your property’ guides and more.
VANEL supported the installation of five community shredders many years ago and has slowly expanded this network to around eight community/publicly accessible commercial shredders around the area. This supports the campaign against identity theft.
VANEL works in partnership across North East Lincolnshire to support any initiatives that can help keeps residents safer. VANEL sits on the North East Lincolnshire Community Safety Partnership (CSP) and is currently funded via the CSP to develop new ways to approach Neighbourhood Watch across parts of the borough.
Visit the website www.nelwatch.org.uk for more information about these and many other initiatives or contact Karl Elliott direct (karl@vanel.org.uk)
