At Acton Hill Church 7:00pm tonight opposite Redback Pub

Street Pastors is an inter-denominational Church response to urban problems, engaging with people on the streets to care, listen and talk.

This scheme is being launched tonight in Acton and Inspector Andrew Deane of Acton Safer Neighbourhoods is hopeful that it will be enormously helpful in dealing with town centre problems in Acton.

The scheme was pioneered in London in January 2003 by the Rev Les Isaac, Director of the Ascension Trust, and has seen some remarkable results, including drops in crime in areas where teams have been working. There are now over 100 teams throughout the UK and Acton is next on the list, the first one to be launched in Ealing.

Schemes running in Hackney and Lambeth have been very successful.

Pastors go out in town centres on Friday and Saturday nights. They help people who are homeless, depressed and give practical help to people the worse for wear from drink or drugs.

Four different churches in the community are involved with the scheme. Volunteers come from the congregations and have to be recommended. They are trained over a few weeks. This is a big commitment as they have to work for 12 weekends over a period of around three months.

We hope to find out more over the next few weeks about what the scheme means for Acton.

Anyone wanting to find out more should visit www.streetpastors.co.uk

October 9, 2009