AN innovative scheme that has introduced community student street wardens to Winton is being extended.

Two more wardens have been recruited and the area covered by the scheme is being extended to Alma and Greene Roads, where there have been recent spikes in anti-social behaviour.

The wardens, who are students themselves, are there to support students in their accommodation, particularly those living away from home for the first time, and to target anti-social behaviour issues.

The scheme has been deemed a success since it was introduced last October and the Arts University has now joined with Bournemouth University in recruiting and funding the community wardens. Winton East Cllr Pat Oakley, who helped set up the scheme, said: “The scheme has been given strong app-roval by the majority of residents and has made a real difference to our community. This is truly what community work is all about, different individuals working together to provide solid pragmatic solutions for the benefit of their community.

“The pilot scheme is clearly successful and I am confident we have demonstrated its value to the community.”

He said he and his fellow ward councillors hoped to double the number of wardens to 12 in the next year.

“Even though we have six wardens they are spread very thinly,” he said. “The wardens work part-time – they are students first and they all have demanding university courses.

“Winton has a population of more than two and a half thousand university students, that’s four hundred students per warden.”