A SCHEME to raise awareness of home security issues has been hailed as a great success by organisers.

Local beat bobbies and councillors toured Brotton this week offering to stamp residents' postcodes on items in kept their garages as part of National Neighbourhood Week.

The marking means they are easier to trace back to their right owners if they are stolen and later found by the police.

Coun Richard Rudland, who represents the village on Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, said the scheme was a great success.

"It was brilliant. We postcoded about 80 properties, which was well in excess of what we imagined," he said.

"We now intend to repeat it as soon as we can on an evening so we can target more homes."

Coun Rudland added that just last week, there was a spate of garage break-ins at the village.