More Bobbies

For many years various campaigns have called for 900 or 1,000 Police officers in Southwark. Pretty random round numbers plucked out of thin air. And it is very appealing to campaign for more Police officers.

In Dulwich we don’t so much need more Police officers as much as Police officers organised back into Safer Neighbourhood Teams based in East Dulwich. We used to have 15 police officers between the Village ward and East Dulwich ward SNT teams with further dedicated school Police officers. They worked alternate weeks. So we regularly had 6 or 7 Police officers covering our area. As they were based in the former East Dulwich police station the instant they started their shifts they were policing the Dulwich area.

To help maximise our local Police officers effectiveness we’ve also provided hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund crime prevention they recommend. Things lice free property marking kits for residents, alert boxes for local businesses, free bike locks, speed guns, gating alleyways, better street lighting, and many other projects.

But now these Dulwich Police officers are shared with Camberwell and based in Camberwell. They spend roughly a third of their time travelling to and from Camberwell to Dulwich and East Dulwich. A totally avoidable waste of time. So our 15 officers are now effectively 10 officers in real terms.

So for the Dulwich area we don’t need more Police officers but rather officers who spend 100% of their time serving the communities they’re allocated to help.

 

 

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