My constituency of Dulwich and West Norwood was the area hardest hit across the whole of London when Boris Johnson was the Mayor of London and chose to shut down multiple police stations across London, but particularly in Southeast London.
We lost the East Dulwich police station on Lordship Lane, as well as the surrounding police stations in areas such as Forest Hill, Sydenham and Camberwell. Shortly afterwards the Conservatives also shut down local police Safer Neighbourhood Team bases right across Southwark and Lambeth.
It was only with a huge local campaign that we managed to save Gipsy Hill police station which now serves the south of my constituency.
With the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in government over the last 13 years we have seen a cut of more than £1billion in the Metropolitan Police budget. The consequences of this have been the decline in neighbourhood policing with many vacancies, constant changes of staffing and officers being abstracted to cover other duties outside of their local area on a very frequent basis.
At the same time a series of revelations, culminating in the Casey Review have left trust and confidence in policing particularly low, and some types of crime have been increasing. In my constituency, we have lost two more young people to knife crime in recent weeks, and we have seen a very concerning spate of robberies often with young people as the victims.
In addition to significant police reforms, we need properly resourced safer neighbourhood teams, fully staffed with officers from a diverse range of backgrounds who are in post for long enough to get to know the community they are policing properly so that trust can be built.
Thankfully number of officers is now slowly beginning to rise again and I was pleased to hear that the numbers of Sergeants will be increasing across Southwark and that numbers of PCs and Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) will also be increasing.
I was pleased to attend the launch event for a new Community Patrol recently in the Dulwich, Herne Hill and East Dulwich parts of my constituency which will involve local volunteers in providing safe and supportive eyes and ears for our local police in the key after-school period when thefts of mobile phones from school pupils unfortunately sometimes happen.
I’m keen to see safer neighbourhood ward panels re-established as soon as possible in every ward in my constituency so that community members can meet with the police on a regular basis. Partnership working and engagement are vital for rebuilding trust and confidence and making our communities safer.
