CAPE TOWN. – Hundreds of registered Neighbourhood Watches have signed up for the Cape Town Neighbourhood Watch app, which lets members log incidents, request municipal services and manage their patrols.
The City of Cape Town first proposed the tool in late 2020, drawing on input from Neighbourhood Watches to guide its development. The application went live in 2024, when structured training of individual groups began.
Sharp rise in usage
To date, 270 groups comprising nearly 1 400 individuals have been onboarded. Logged entries climbed from 1 072 in March 2025 to 4 303 in March 2026, with service requests and policing-related issues the most common. Watches in Edgemead and Heideveld record the highest usage.
How the Cape Town Neighbourhood Watch app works
The app generates City C3 service notifications with an automatic reference number and lets users attach photographs and video. It is available on the major app stores but limited to watches registered with the Western Cape Department of Police Oversight and Community Safety, with credentials issued once accreditation is verified.
Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, Alderman JP Smith, said the City planned further mass training sessions in the coming weeks, adding that the app helps it identify hotspots and adjust deployment based on the data emerging from each area.
New structures registered with POCS can request training by emailing [email protected].
