Neighbourhood Watch in the Keighley area is to undergo a dramatic overhaul following the appointment of a new Neighbourhood Officer.

Gary Smith, 36, has taken over as Neighbourhood officer from PC Steve Littlewood, who has retired after 32 years with the force.

PC Littlewood built up the Neighbourhood Watch scheme, making it the largest in West Yorkshire with 770 watches in the Keighley division.

Gary has been a Crime Prevention Officer for the last two and a half years, and before that spent 10 years as a prison officer.

He is looking forward to the task ahead and sees the job as new challenge.

He said: "My views on Neighbourhood Watch are that it's a community initiative with guidance from the police.

"And together all of us can make the area a safer place to live.

"All the recognition has to be given to Steve Littlewood for building it up to what it is today.

"But he was restricted in what he could do by the way the whole Neighbourhood Watch has been organised. Now we need to change that."

Gary has set his sights on increasing the number of watches to 1,000, and wants to increase awareness in the Asian community, which, at the moment has few schemes running.

He also wants to introduce a greater degree of information sharing between the police and the people.

He said: "We want information sharing to go further than it has in the past.

"We will give more information than before about active criminals in the area. And we will be e-mailing intelligence to co-ordinators."

He will also be letting the public know when information they have given has proved successful

He said: "Sometimes people don't report a crime or something suspicious because they never hear any more and don't know whether it has done any good.

"We want to give the public feedback on results so that they know that they can make a difference."