Carol Montgomery has now joined Paul Sweeney in Steyning to cover during Kylies Maternity leave, please say hello and introduce yourself if you see us out and about.

Work has resumed on the Junior Warden garden in Manor Road, after delays due to weather and other problems, what had turned into a jungle is returning to a garden similar to last year!!The garden has been built from scratch with help from the local community and donations from companies.

We are trying to find a traditional style bird table which will be placed in the garden to encourage more wildlife, if any one can help us with this please use the 'contact us' link on this website - many thanks.

Plans are to introduce Hedgehog and insect houses in the future to further encourage wildlife and to teach the children the importance of caring for and observing living things as well as their natural environment.

We have a vegetable patch again and were pleased to find some wild poppys which we have kept! also the raspberrys are better established and we may get more than three raspberrys this year!

We have planted some more perennials to make the garden easier long term and have acquired a variety of plants from the 'freecycle' website and would like to thank all those who kindly donated them.

The garden has proved to be an excellent way to involve the children in improving their local area showing that they can make a difference to where they live whilst having fun.

The Steyning Junior wardens were joined by Steynings PCSO Charlotte Whittaker and Horsham Street Scene Wardens Jayne Jeffrey and Karen Grisley at our last meeting. The junior wardens helped with one of the current warden campaigns targeting theft from vehiclesin the area.

The junior wardens split into groups and went round Steyning looking for itemsleft in vehicles which could tempt thieves,vehicle locations and details were taken along with what items were on display. These detailswere all confirmed at the time and vehicle owners will receive a letter from the crime reduction unit explaining that valuable items were clearly ondisplay in their vehicle and reminding them of precautions to take to minimise the chances of them becoming victims of theft from their vehicle.

The Junior Wardens were very enthusiastic about the taskprobably because it meant they could be nosey in peoples cars.We hope this campaign will help our area to become an even harder target for people involved in this type of criminal activity whilstraising awareness amongst the young people and vehicle owners of the importance of removing valuables when leaving a vehicle.

Please report anything you may be concerned about to the wardens even if this is after the event it helps us to build a picture of what is going on in the area and helps us to deal with future situations. Although we are out and about most of the time, we need your help as we can't be everywhere at one time! even if you think it is insignificant an event may fit into a bigger picture. to remind everyone we can deal with anti-social behaviour, under age drinking now having the power to confiscate alcohol and acquire names and addresses to issue yellow card warnings which trigger letters home from sussex police and also virtually any quality of life issue which may affect you.For example we have dealt with everything from neighbour disputes, house parties to missing tortoises recently. We will gladly pop in to change a lightbulb or smoke alarm batteries for example if a resident cannot do this for any reason, to prevent any unnecessary accidents and to pop in for welfare checks if required.

If it affects your quality of life we will always try to help if we can! if we cant we may know someone who can!

Please remember our away from home scheme, originally aimed at elderly residents, but open to all if your house is going to be unoccupied you can let the wardens know and as part of our patrols we will keep an eye to check for any problems. We will ask for key holder details if any are available and keep an eye for little signs that show a property is empty for example - post collecting on view in front of a glass door. We hope this will give an extra piece of mind for residents who may be away for holiday, ill health or any other reason.