Bexleyheath Road Gets Cold Calling Ban
Abbott's Walk, Bexleyheath has been designated the first No Cold Calling area in Bexley.
Signs have been displayed on lampposts and residents will be issued with leaflets and door stickers to send a clear message that uninvited salespeople and workmen are not welcome.
Although it will not make cold callers illegal, the experience in other places is that No Cold Calling areas are an effective deterrent and give vulnerable people the confidence to turn them away.
This initiative is the result of partnership working between Bexley Council's Trading Standards Team, the local Neighbourhood Watch, Police and the Council's Neighbourhood Services Team.
The latest step in the Trading Standards Team's strategy to tackle doorstep crime, it builds on the success of the team's liaison with local banks and building societies, the Doorstep Crime Hotline and the What Tradesman customer feedback scheme. If successful, this initiative can be rolled out in other suitable areas of Bexley in the future.
Bexley Council's Cabinet Member for Community Affairs, Cllr Katie Perrior, said: "We are determined to protect the most vulnerable in our community and this project will hopefully help do that. If it proves to be successful other parts of the Borough may be designated No Cold Calling areas in the future."
Doorstep Crime includes doorstep callers, bogus workmen and officials, high-pressure salespeople and distraction burglary. It is now well established that distraction burglary and rogue trading are interlinked - all too often, the seemingly innocent doorstep seller is actually checking things out for a re-visit to carry out some form of burglary.
Whilst this type of criminal behaviour can impact on anybody in any place, research shows that older people are particularly vulnerable, especially those living alone.
A national Trading Standards Institute survey of 9,000 randomly selected households showed that 96 per cent of people simply did not want doorstep cold-callers and nobody actually welcomed them.
The number of serious doorstep crime incidents reported to both the police and trading standards services has grown significantly over the past few years. Incidents involving older people losing thousands of pounds are now not unusual - and what has become clear is that the response and support mechanisms of enforcement agencies has not kept pace with the skills and organisation of the criminals.
Only last October the ringleader of a gang of rogue builders was imprisoned for two years for a number of offences including obtaining £1,900 from an elderly Sidcup resident by deception and attempting to obtain a further £10,500 from him. Trading Standards were alerted to this particular incident by building society staff as a result of the joint Trading Standards and Police awareness campaign.
Abbott's Walk was chosen as a result of Police and Trading Standards intelligence and a request from the local Neighbourhood Watch.
