A NEIGHBOURLY student is the new leader of a York group which helps communities fight crime.

Natasha Hardy, 20, from Acomb, has been confirmed as the chairman of the York Community Group, which oversees about 1,600 Neighbourhood Watch groups in the city.

The ambitious law student said she took on the role through a desire to bring communities closer together and to get more people involved in the projects.

Natasha said: “We want people to become more involved and attending meetings, and if we can get better channels of communication between the committee, the co-ordinators and the police, we can get more information out to everybody.

Neighbourhood Watch is more effective if everybody is working together.

“We want to establish channels which everybody can communicate through and we are thinking about using things like Facebook and Twitter, but to do this, we need the information coming through from the various groups. There are 1,600 Neighbourhood Watches in York, but at the moment not all of those are being reached out to.”

The Northumbria University student set up her own Neighbourhood Watch group in Acomb and encouraged neighbours to join by visiting them with cakes.

She then joined the committee of York Community Watch after attending its annual meeting with her grandmother.

As she originally comes from a small village in Wensleydale, Natasha said she is used to living somewhere where everyone knows one another.

The York Community Group’s other aim is to make people aware of the amount of security goods the committee has such as personal alarms, bike tags and locks, none of which it makes a profit on.

The group hopes to hold a stall on Knavesmire, on June 26, during National Neighbourhood Watch Week.

To get involved with York Community Watch, which meets at the Safer Neighbourhood Team offices in Clifford Street, phone them on 01904 669072.