STREET Pastors in Chippenham have just celebrated their fifth anniversary. The initiative was set up to help make the streets a calmer place to be in the evenings.

An official birthday party was thrown on Saturday, celebrating the past five years of hard work in trying to keep the streets of Chippenham a safe and friendly place to be.

Michael Weeks, 37, co-ordinator of Chippenham Street Pastors, said: “We had three events in total to celebrate the fifth birthday of the pastors. Firstly we had Reverend Les Isaac, the founder of street pastors and now the CEO of the Ascension Trust, came over and celebrate with us. We then went to Chippenham Methodist Church and later on an actual birthday party behind closed doors.”

As well as celebrating the milestone in the group’s work, individuals from the town were also awarded for all of their hard work. Starting in 2011, the street pastors hit the streets in pairs to bring a calm attitude to the sometimes hectic streets of the town.

“We realised that over the course of the five years that our volunteers have done 7,773 hours of street patrols, from 10pm-4am on Saturday evenings, and that doesn’t include Solstice events or carnivals.

“We also gave awards to three other people in the town, Pete Hutton from the town council received one, Chippenham police and Sue Withew. These people get a lot of flak off of people when they are doing their job but by working alongside them we see how much they do for the people in Chippenham,” added Mr Weeks.

Mr Weeks also showed recognised that the volunteers weren’t the only ones who needed to be thanked.

“I must say a big thank you to the people of Chippenham for being so accepting of us, it is a privilege to serve the town of Chippenham in this way,” Mr Weeks said.