RESIDENTS are being urged to take advantage of a new scheme to combat rogue traders and bogus callers knocking on their doors, which the police claim has already reduced cold calling in other parts of the borough.

The 'no cold caller' zones have been set up by the Redbridge Bogus Caller Partnership, which is jointly run by Police Safer Neighbourhood Teams (SNTs), Redbridge Trading Standards, and the London Fire Brigade, as well as other agencies including the charity Age UK.

The launch of the latest phase of zones, for the Wanstead area, took place this morning (Thursday, May 13) in Nutter Lane.

Sergeant Mark Peel said: “It's about empowering residents to say 'no' to bogus callers. Of course we know there are some genuine cold callers but we're trying to discourage people from buying at the door.

“If anyone has a caller at their door that they think is suspicious they then can phone Consumer Direct and report them.

“We look at our feedback over a six month period and we do see a significant reduction in crime in other area where they've been set up.”

Peter Beresford, 74, of Reydon Gardens, who lives in the new zone, said: “I think it'll be a good thing for the area.

“I'd had people knock on my door and say they're doing some work down the road and can they give me a price to do mine, or they say they can see you've got broken roof tiles.”

He said sometimes he felt intimidated by bogus callers, particular when they used plausible stories.

“The ones that make you worry are the ones that make it sound as if your neighbour has booked them to come round, but of course it always turns out that they haven't.”

However, people living in an existing zone, in Church End ward, said they weren't even aware that their road was part of the scheme and that they hadn't noticed any difference in the number of cold callers.

Colin Thompson, 63, of St Ronan's Crescent, said: “We get all sorts of callers round here all the time, people selling cleaning kits, tea-towels, pictures.

“I've not heard of this number I'm supposed to ring. I did hear there was a meeting about something in the street a few weeks back, I think they put a leaflet through the door, but we get so many of them it probably went in the recycling with the rest of them.”

Eileen Howey, 55, of Forest Approach, said: “I've got a yellow sticker in my window, which I think we were given at least a year ago, and think the number of people knocking on the door went down a bit then, but there's been no change recently.”