Ryan Goad goes on patrol to find out what impact they're having...

With flashing lights on top of their cars and police-style badges, community wardens can, by their own admission, be the subject of a "laugh and a joke".

But Sudbury town and Great Cornard parish councils are more than happy with the work they are doing and the pair are winning more and more friends in their quest to make the area a cleaner and better place to live.

There have been two wardens' vans buzzing around Sudbury and Great Cornard since the turn of the year, after 19-year-old Bradley Smith joined pioneering warden Andy Nunny who has been doing the job for the past four years.

I met Andy and Bradley at 9am at Sudbury Town Hall. They were in the middle of a mid-morning tea break.

It was mid-morning to them anway. The duo start work at 7.30am in winter, something I should have picked up on having already seen Bradley whizz past towards the Kingfisher car park as I trudged into work.

According to a colleague who followed in my footsteps minutes later, Bradley was then spotted circling the car park in his van, flashing lights on, much like a safety car in Formula One.

It is this image that has led one or two people to chortle and wonder what the wardens could possibly be doing to warrant flashing lights.
"Every morning we check both the station and Kingfisher car parks for abandoned cars, graffiti, overflowing bins... anything like that," said Bradley.

"Quite often we find bins that have been set alight, or smashed glass in the car parks."

And what about the lights?

"They're to let people know that we are here," said Andy, who became Sudbury and Cornard's first warden in 2004.

Cups of tea finished, we headed out to the vans and back on to the streets.

The pair usually work separately and eventually one will be based in Sudbury town centre while the other works around the rest of the patch.
But they teamed up to show me around, starting with a visit to Francis Road, one of the few town council-owned roads in Sudbury.

"We come here every day to check that cars have valid permits and also the road is clear of mess. With the Station Lounge (nightclub and bar) at the top of the road the mess can get very bad, particularly on a Monday morning, but that is part of the job."

Having slapped a warning on a car with an expired parking permit, we headed for a known grot-spot on the Woodhall Business Park.

"This area is one of the worst we have seen recently," said Andy, who was planning to clear it up that afternoon once he had got rid of me. "It is used as a cut-through for people coming from Tesco to the Springlands estate and by school pupils."

The area was littered with plastic shopping bags and other rubbish. Clearly it is also used for fly-tipping as there was also a microwave, boiler and toilet seat among the dumped rubbish.

"Mainly it is Sudbury Upper School students and I have tried to speak to the school," said Andy. "But they come through here on their lunch hour. Each one has a bag and many just chuck them on their way."

The site is not owned by the town council.

"There is no obligation for us to do this, just like many other areas,"

Andy said. "We work on our own initiative. If we wait for Babergh or county council contractors we could be waiting for months. There are some parts that are only cleaned once every month, or once every three months because that is what Babergh have in their rota."

Back on the road, we hit Springlands Way, which seems a case in point.
"We only cleared up here a week ago," said Andy pointing to the littered banks of the road. "This is a main artery in Sudbury and it is a real mess. We would need an army of helpers to keep this clean."

Like the Woodhall Business Park, the wardens are not obliged to clean Springlands Way. That responsibility lies with Babergh Council.

After a quick stop in Raleigh Road, where a resident was warned about a huge mound of dumped rubbish on her doorstep, we arrived at McDonald's. Again discarded rubbish was on the agenda.

"With McDonald's at one end of Springlands Way and Tesco at the other, there is a whole strip of rubbish, a lot of which comes from these two places," Andy pointed out. "We try to speak to McDonald's as much as possible and remind them of their responsibilities in clearing the area up."

The two wardens are both approachable and a lot of their work includes negotiating and gently reminding residents and businesses of their responsibilities.

And judging by the responses of people we met during my morning on the road, the pair do make an impression.

Almost instantly, McDonald's had sent someone out with a litter-picker to clear the mess around the restaurant and surrounding areas and, as our morning came to an end, the duo received assurances from two major building firms in Great Cornard that roads around their building sites would be cleaned more frequently.

"People do listen to us," said Andy. "Businesses are starting to work with us and more and more often people are stopping us in the street and telling us about incidents that need to be dealt with.

"Some do have a laugh and a joke at us but we are fairly unique. We are the eyes and ears of the community. There aren't too many towns that have community wardens like us and without us the town would be a mess."

A morning in their company was enough to show me that they're right.

Plenty of readers have contacted the Free Press to point out grot-spots but without the wardens, the problem would be worse.

"Litter is the town's big problem," said Bradley. "It is a never-ending circle. You clear up one part and then have to go back a few weeks later. We are spending so much time litter-picking when we should be doing other parts of our job. But we do our best."