Southbank Neighbourhood Watch officially launched

Hosted at a barbecue on October 20, the launch of Southbank Neighbourhood Watch brought together members of the local community along with supporting organisations to find ways of tackling increasing crime in the area.

“During the launch many residents signed up and expressed interest in joining the Neighbourhood Watch team to help support their local community,” Southbank Neighbourhood Watch group organiser and local resident Christoper Milner said.

“It was a fantastic success … it was really good to see the families and residents come together,” he said.

For the past 12 months Mr Milner has been advocating for change after a series of break-ins occurred in Southbank, including an incident involving his waking up one night hearing someone attempting to break into an apartment below his room.

“The aim of Neighbourhood Watch is to work with the police to create awareness by providing crime prevention information to the community, which is going to make us all safer,” Mr Milner said.

He has since partnered with Neighbourhood Watch Victoria, Victoria Police, Crime Stoppers and other organisations. Southbank Neighbourhood Watch has also received a $2000 grant from the City of Melbourne.

“We had fantastic support from the council and from community groups and from local businesses,” Mr Milner said.

The Neighbourhood Watch barbecue was held in conjunction with Children’s Week and together with a free sausage sizzle, there were also lots of kids’ activities, gifts and raffles, bringing the Southbank community together and building connections.

If people get to know each other, if people get to know their neighbours, then from that point they will start communicating better.

“Therefore, local residents will feel safer, and they will communicate any issues they have including safety, and so, by doing that they can support each other in lots of ways,” Mr Milner said.

Right behind Southbank Neighbourhood Watch, too, is Lord Mayor Nick Reece, who said that if re-elected he would work closely with other suburbs within the City of Melbourne to help introduce more Neighbourhood Watch groups.

According to data from the Crime Statistics Agency, Melbourne has seen a 15 per cent increase in crime, with 29,260 cases reported in 2024 compared to 25,433 incidents in 2023.

“We need to educate people on how to report crime and where to report crime and who to report to,” Mr Milner said. 

“That’s what it was all about - bringing everyone together to get them to learn more about how to connect with each other better because that’s what we need to do.” •