Operation Vanguard: £117,936 for guards in Braintree, Chelmsford and Colchester
Essex County Council placed its patrols where the Wethersfield bus stops — not where the crime is.
Essex County Council is paying a private security firm to patrol Braintree, Chelmsford and Colchester town centres for three months. The scheme is called Operation Vanguard. This is what it costs, how the contract was awarded, and how the three towns compare with the rest of Essex.
What it costs
The contract is worth £117,936 before VAT (£141,523.20 with it), according to the government's contract register, Find a Tender (notice 086682-2026). It was awarded to My Local Bobby Limited of Buckhurst Hill as a direct award, without competition, signed on 11 September and running from 14 September to 13 December 2026.
The council approved a budget of up to £150,000, drawn from its Community Innovation and Improvement Fund reserve.
That is £39,312 per town for three months — about £432 a day each. The council's own page says two security operatives patrol each town centre, seven days a week. The guards have no powers beyond those of any member of the public.
Why these three towns
Not crime. The council's decision paper, signed by the Leader on 28 August 2026, says the Home Office runs a free bus from the Wethersfield asylum site to Braintree, Chelmsford and Colchester, and puts the guards in "the three town and city centres affected by the transport provision".
The same paper records, twice, that the Home Office says there is no evidence of the Wethersfield site having an impact on crime levels. The case for the patrols rests on "anecdotal evidence" of fear, and on the Government's plan to expand the site from up to 800 residents to 1,245.
Where the crime actually is
Chart: Crimes Weekly · GB-VG-01 · Source: police.uk street-level crime, 1-mile radius of each town centre, 12 months to July 2026 · Find a Tender 086682-2026 · ECC decision FP-160-08-26
Recorded crime within a mile of each town centre in the county council's area, 12 months to July 2026:
| Town centre | Recorded crimes | Anti-social behaviour | Shoplifting | Patrolled |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chelmsford | 6,415 | 620 | 1,006 | Yes |
| Colchester | 6,364 | 666 | 810 | Yes |
| Basildon | 5,146 | 568 | 485 | No |
| Harlow | 4,902 | 403 | 410 | No |
| Clacton | 4,215 | 440 | 263 | No |
| Braintree | 2,695 | 269 | 167 | Yes |
| Witham | 1,770 | 214 | 95 | No |
Table: Crimes Weekly · GB-VG-02 · Source: police.uk street-level recorded crime, 1-mile radius of each town centre, 12 months to July 2026
- Chelmsford and Colchester are the two busiest town centres the county council is responsible for. On crime alone, patrols there would be easy to defend.
- Braintree has about half the town-centre crime of Basildon, Harlow or Clacton, none of which gets a patrol.
- Braintree town-centre crime has fallen every year since the Wethersfield site opened — from 3,223 to 2,864 to 2,695 over the last three years, down 16% (see our Wethersfield analysis).
- Because each town gets the same money, the Braintree patrol costs about £58 per recorded town-centre crime over the three months, against about £25 in Chelmsford and Colchester.
Southend and Thurrock are run by their own councils, so they are not in the table.
Will anyone know if it worked?
The decision paper lists three aims: reassurance, public protection and deterrence. It sets no baseline and no target. The only evaluation described in the council's equality assessment is: "We will seek engagement from Essex police to provide data."
The same assessment warns that, because the guards are posted at the bus hubs, asylum seekers living at Wethersfield "will feel targeted and could be vulnerable to attacks" if publicity is handled badly.
Questions the council hasn't answered
- Why was a direct award without competition needed for a site that opened in 2023?
- What hours does each patrol cover, and what is the hourly rate?
- What will be measured, against what baseline, and when will the results be published?
- Why was a town with falling crime prioritised over Basildon, Harlow or Clacton?
- Will the scheme be extended, and at what cost?
Sources: Essex County Council decision FP-160-08-26, "Launch of Operation Vanguard", and its Equalities Comprehensive Impact Assessment (28 August 2026); Find a Tender notice 086682-2026; Essex County Council, Operation Vanguard web page; police.uk street-level crime, one-mile radius of each town centre, August 2025 – July 2026. The cost per crime divides each town's share of the net contract value by a quarter of its annual town-centre crime.
