Neighbourhood Watched - the debate rages on

Neighbourhood Watched was on TV again last night, and it was an interesting one for me, because I met Jane – the 58-year-old woman who needed to move into an adapted property after a major operation – when I visited New Charter Housing Group to find out about the series last autumn.

I told her I couldn’t imagine a film crew following me around during such a vulnerable time – Jane had to have her leg amputated because of a devastating circulatory disease, and they started filming her in hospital during her rehabilitation – but she couldn’t have been more complementary.

She was full of praise for both New Charter, her new landlord, and for the team from the production company Raw Television, recalling how they had gone out and bought everyone a Chinese takeaway on the day she moved in to her new home.

So Jane was more than happy to be involved in Neighbourhood Watched, but after last week’s programme, some Inside Housing readers were sceptical about the way in which tenants are portrayed in the fly-on-the-wall series.

‘“Reality TV” is a lazy term used to describe programmes that differ from other forms of TV entertainment only in that they use unpaid members of the public as the dramatis personae rather than expensive actors,’ wrote JimmyMack.

‘Programmes like Neighbourhood Watched confirm prejudices and steadily erode people’s commitment to a fair society. This is particularly bad news for social housing which for many years has failed to failed to grab the strong sympathies of the home-owning majority,’ he added.

In response, David Rigby, who is involved with this series from the landlord’s perspective, argued that the series raised the profile of the work of housing providers.

‘The housing sector needs to stand up for itself far better than it does - most social landlords would not take the “risk” of taking part, yet moan about being ignored,’ he wrote in a personal capacity.

‘Social housing is behind paper clips and carbon paper in government priorities. I happen to think housing is rather more important, my main reason for opening doors to TV. The producers and I have different reasons for making the series, but we have a common interest in accuracy.’

I thought last night’s programme in particular highlighted the complex situations housing officers deal with. It saw New Charter employees Pam Hollingsworth and Martin Bell responding to complaints from sheltered housing tenants in Hyde, Greater Manchester, about their 89-year-old neighbour Nellie’s grandson.

Darren, the grandson, had a history of drug use, and New Charter, his frail grandmother’s landlord of 16 years, had handled complaints about him in the past. Nellie’s neighbours reported that they were scared of the groups of men who visited Darren in the shed in his grandmother’s back garden late at night – they thought there was drug dealing going on. Next-door-neighbour Phil was so frightened he barricaded his door every night and slept on the so that he could react quickly if somebody did try to break in.

Like in last week’s programme, New Charter installed hidden cameras in order to gather evidence proving that Darren was living at the property and that he is receiving visitors in the early hours in the morning. Despite this, Nellie, who had brought 38-year-old Darren up by herself, refused to admit that he was living with her in the housing association’s property. The tenancy enforcement officers showed her syringes lying in her shed, but she would not hear anything said against him and refused the landlord’s offer of support.

So New Charter pushed ahead with an injunction exclusion order with a power of arrest attached to it – this meant that Darren cannot visit his grandmother’s home. Just 12 days after it was issued, he broke the injunction and he is arrested by the police.

Watching the programme threw up questions for me, like I’m sure it did for other viewers. Darren, we were told as the credits were about to roll, was given a six month suspended sentence – so what happened next? Did the legal action have any effect? Did Darren stay away?

And what did it mean for the safety of Nellie’s neighbour Phil who’d helped New Charter gather evidence by allowing cameras to be hidden in his house? ‘Housing Associations can’t do it one their own, they need help from the public,’ he said – but did the assistance he gave leave him vulnerable?

For the first time, many viewers would have thought about the difficulties that all agencies face when dealing with the perpetrators of anti-social behaviour – and also about the need to protect witnesses who help gather the evidence against them.

What did you think of last night’s programme? If you didn’t catch it, you can view it here.