Here, Hannah Gray meets two Street Leaders and find out what a difference the project is making.

IF the fly-tipping on your road is getting you down, or you're sick of new patches of graffiti cropping up, now is your chance to take action rather than simply moan to your friends and neighbours.

Back in July, Peterborough City Council launched a new scheme, Street Leaders, to encourage the people who know certain areas of the city the best – its residents – to get involved in improving them.

Street Leaders are volunteers, who report environmental problems, ranging from litter up to abandoned vehicles, to the city council.

They ring in the problems using a freephone number that has been set up specifically for them, or via an online reporting form.

Street Leaders are recruited, trained and supported by one of six council Street Leader co-ordinators, and the leaders can look after an area as big or small as they like.

The scheme has been up and running in Millfield and New England, North Bretton, Stanground, Paston and Orton Goldhay, and has been hailed as such a success that, last week, it was announced it would be expanded into Werrington, Woodston, further areas of Orton Goldhay, Westwood and Ravensthorpe in the coming weeks.

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Head of neighbourhoods for the council Adrian Chapman said he was delighted with the response to the scheme, which originally began in Dogsthorpe two years ago, with 15 volunteers.

He said: "It's just amazing. There's two things I cannot praise too much, the number of people who've got on board, and the absolute commitment they've got to this project and their city. It blew me out of the water, it really did."

Adrian said that as well as responding to problems they saw, Street Leaders were turning out to have other roles in their community.

"What we're finding is the volunteers are helping to build up a sense of community pride. They're letting their neighbours know about events in their community. They're helping build community cohesion. There are scores of other benefits that are coming out of it," he explained.

But Adrian admits that, in some quarters, there was a bit of wariness about the project.

He said: "Initially, some people were a bit cynical and thought that it was a way of the local authority escaping its responsibility, but, actually, it's the opposite of that. It's a way for local people to hold the council to account and demand better performance."

He also admits that 50 years ago, a project like this would not have been necessary, because residents were more closely involved in their local area.

"Culturally, it's a different time now, and people don't automatically get involved in their community in the way they used to," he said.

"This is an attempt, I suppose, to get back to an era when people did care about the neighbourhood, because we know that when people do care about their area, it improves their wellbeing, it improves how they feel about their neighbourhood, and their sense of pride."

Things are going so well for the scheme – which now boasts more than 100 volunteers – that it is hoped that one day it will be city-wide.

"We want to roll it out fairly slowly so we can make sure we can resource it properly and the volunteers we have are properly supported, but eventually the whole city will be covered," Adrian said.

Next pages: Meet two of Peterborough's Street Leaders.

If you would like to volunteer to be a Street Leader, call Peterborough Direct on 01733 747474 or e-mail streetleaders@peterborough.gov.uk.