Kelly Parkins was smiling when she found out that she had won Brent Housing Partnership's (BHP) Neighbourhood Champion award.

The award recognises the unsung heroes of the St Raphaels, Mitchellbrook and Brentfield estates who are helping to make their community a safer place to live.

Kelly, a resident of the Brentfied estate, was nominated by local Police Community Support Officer Martin Wells who said:

"For the last two years Kelly has worked hard to promote Neighbourhood Watch schemes in the NW10 area. She regularly joins our patrols delivering leaflets, invisibly marking goods such as computers, DVD players and mobile phones and encouraging people to join their local Neighbourhood Watch scheme. Kelly has made a real difference because; where people get involved in their local scheme, burglaries generally go down by around 20%."

BHP Board member Karin Jaeger presented Kelly with a certificate together with £50 worth of Marks and Spencer's vouchers and Kelly's family, BHP staff and the Stonebridge Safer Neighbourhoods Team were on hand to give her a big round of applause.

BHP's Warden Services Manager, Jane Lambert said:

"Kelly has given up much of her time to carry out crime prevention work in her local area and is a shining example to the community."