One of my councillor colleagues testified to the London Regional Parliamennts Select Committee regarding the 2011 census. The MPs heard a unified message from Newham, Southwark and Westminster councils about how hard it is to count residents.

Each resident attracts roughly £600 of funding from central government.

Currently central government believes 270,000 residents are residents in Southwark. Southwark currently has 320,000 people registered with GPs. That means roughly £30M of central government grants are not being made to Southwark.

It seems unlikely as planned the 2011 Census will close any of that gap. Worringly it could well open it up further.

At last a Police force has engaged professional mathematicians. The LAPD are worknig with University of California. They’ve come up with two equations that could explain crime hotspots into two types.

If I’ve understood correctly:

“supercritical” - small spikes in crime rates pass a critical threshold and create a local crime wave.

“subcritical” - when a particular factor such as a drug den causes a large spike in crime.

 They state that the equations suggest that rigorous policing could completely eliminate subcritical hotspots but simply displace supercritical crime.

So the key would be keeping below supercritical thresholds and quickly dealing with subcritical factors.

Any local mathematicians available for pro bono work?

For many months GLA Lib Dems have been highlighting that London police officer numbers are set to fall. Just before Christmas Mayor Boris Johnson was directly challenged about his proposed cut in Police numbers as per his draft budget for 2010-2011. These advanced warnings are now being picked up on and this week were reported in the Guardian newspaper.

Lib Dems proposed a reversal to this cut and to also allow extra police officers for boroughs with the higher gun and knife crime while reducing the overall budget. The Lib Dem proposals can be seen in the group’s budget amendment.

How will this affect Southwark and East Dulwich?
455/32 London Boroughs would result in something like one less police officer for East Dulwich. It doesn’t sound much but we only have one Police sargent and two police officers supported by five Police Community Support Officers covering East Dulwich at present.

Since coming to power in 1997 the Labour government has created over 4,300 new criminal offences. That’s around one for every single day in power.

apparently when Tony Blair was Prime Minister 27 new criminal offences a month were being created but under Gordon Brown’s premiership it has accelerated to 33 a month.

Some have likened this to ‘legislative diarrhoea’.

Importantly has it reduce the fear of crime or solves great issues?

I can’t say I feel any safer. Do you?

The bus stands at the junction of Friern Road with Lordship Lane represent the terminal points for the number 12 and 40 bus routes and any buses from routes 176, 185, etc that are turned around earlier. Over the last ten years bus numbers have increased - all great stuff.

BUT this terminus has no facilities. No toilets for bus drivers. This means when desperate the bus drivers have had to ‘go’ wherever they can. This has spilled into anti social problems for the residents in Rycott Path and Friern Road. To such a degree that the Police are involved.

Transport for London obtained planning permission 2007 for a drivers toilet to be installed. I’ve finally tracked down the hold-up. EDF power lines. Council officers have agreed to waive the normal notice periods and try geeing up EDF a major supplier to Southwark Council.

Hopefully within the next eight weeks the toilet can be installed and the area become just a little bit more civilised.

The next meeting of the East Dulwich Safer Neighbourhood Team Police ward panel is on Monday.

The current priorities set by the panel are -

1. Youth Priority

2. Offences within the vicinity of licensed premises

3. Vehicle Crime

Do you think they are the right priorities?

Please let me know what you think.

London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced the closure the Commercial Vehicle Education Unit. This group of 3 Police sergeants and 9 Police constables specialise finding defective lorries and taking them off the road and working with haulage companies to reduce collisions with pedestrians and cyclists.

Not enough was being done to reduce such collisions. HGV lorries are the number one killer for cyclists in London. Even less will be done going forward.

The announcement was almost exactly nine years to the day when a previous treasurer of Southwark Cyclists, while I was the chairperson, Brigitte Robinson, was killed by a left turning lorry whose driver had a young child in the cab and had been working 12+ hour shifts 7 days a week for many months.

Loosing a close cycling friend was incredibly distressing. How many more people have to die to HGV’s before the few exempt from sideguards are no longer exempt and the limited resources are withdrawn from educating lorry drivers and cyclists.

Talking to East Dulwich Police the majority of Violence Against the Person - people hitting other people and worse - is behind closed doors and usually alcohol related…. 

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has recommended as part of its latest advisory document on public health that each alcohol unit should have a minimum price.

NICE says “Making alcohol less affordable appears to be the most effective way of reducing alcohol-related harm. There is sufficient evidence (within the published literature and from the economic analysis) to justify the introduction of a minimum price per unit. The evidence suggests that young people who drink and people who drink harmful amounts of alcohol tend to choose cheaper drinks. Establishing a minimum price per unit would limit the ability of these groups to ‘trade down’ to cheaper products. A minimum price per unit (unlike a tax increase) would prevent retailers from passing on any increase to producers, or absorbing it themselves, so it would prevent them from selling alcohol below cost price.”

This contrasts nicely with a survey of 10,000 teenagers by Prof Mark Bells from Liverpool John Mores University showing that alcohol is so cheap kids can get plastered on pocket money - 17p an alcohol unit or £1.36 for a 2 litre bottle of very strong cider.

Contradicting this is ASDA supermarket executive Paul Kelly & Sainsbury’s Nick Grant to a Commons Health Select Committee.

It will be interesting to see if the supermarket chiefs win over peer reviewed scientific research.

Will NICE be nobbled by the Department of Health. Sadly my money is on those supermarket drinks promotions selling at ridiculous prices winning at an ever greater cost to society of drunken behaviour.

Latest East Dulwich crime stats taken from the mets Police  http://maps.met.police.uk/tables.htm show that in the last year August to August the crime rate has dropped such that East Dulwich has moved from 4th lowest crime rate  in Southwark to having the lowest crime rate in Southwark.

This is despite having 1/4 of Peckham Rye, 1/8 of Village and 1/8 of College wards most problematic areas counted against East Dulwich ward. So the real underlying story is even better than this.

It’s so improved that the East Dulwich Safer Neighbourhood Team have been straying outside East Dulwich to help out in Dulwich Park - which has seen a 37% decrease in robberies.

When I became a councillor this was one of my personal ojectives - to have the lowest crime rates in Southwark in East Dulwich. We started our campaign to become East dulwich councillors with a Crime Survey. the survey results helped us decide to target a lot of the resources we as councillors allocate. We’ve still more work to do. I want East Dulwich to be better compared to London as a whole. We’re currently just outside the best quarter for London.

How can we improve it further?

After pressure from local Lib Dems, Southwark Council is to start using two cars equipped with cameras to get tough on people who ignore traffic rules by monitoring school gates in the mornings and afternoons. We’ve had complaints about this from parents with kids at Heber and Goodrich Schools. Footage will be used to issue penalty notices of up to £120, with revenue from the fines directed back into road safety projects and traffic calming measures outside schools and across the borough.

Clearly illegally parked cars outside schools create dangerous situations for children and parents. The School Keep Clear road markings are there for a reason and I suspect with these camera cars coming people will take those markings much more seriously.

It also means our local East Dulwich Police and community Wardens can spend more time doing other tasks.

The East Dulwich Police Safer neighbourhood Team now consists of 1 Sargent, 3 Police Constables and 5 Police Community Support Officers. 9 officers in total. Amazing.

This might be related to the Police being unable/unwilling to correct their Police stats computer to reflect the actual East Dulwich boundaries. Currently East Dulwich includes 1/4 of Peckham Rye, 1/8 of Dulwich and 1/8 of College. Changing the Post Code lookup table in a computer file is dull but really very simple to perform. Only then will we truly know whether the efforts of councillors, council officers and Safer Neighbourhood Teams are working.

So even a team of 9 is hardly enough to cover 150% of the intended area for a Safer Neighbourhood Team.

For some time I’ve been following this Act from its initial proposal onwards. It aims to give communities the opportunity to take back powers for things pointlessly decided by central government or its quango’s.

As part of this Act I applied to Southwark that its asks for Southwark to have its own Safer Camera Partnership - speed and red light running cameras. Effectively opt out of the London wide scheme. Full council agreed to approve this and it is now with the next filter organised by the Local Government Association. If they agreed it, then it is formally lodged with central government. They then decide whether to implement this change or not.

My idea relates to the fact that for several years no new cameras have been installed in Southwark by the London Camera Partnership.

The idea came from attending a Southwark Living Streets presentation where they showed that virtually all collisions on our roads occur on major roads and that the primary cause is speeding. They also explained that lots of research that such fast roads, such as the Old Kent Road, result in deprivation via ill health, injuries, noise, social dislocation (not knowing your neighbours).

Hopefully, I’ll get to present my case to the LGA soon.

What do you think - more cameras?

Alleys are magnets for anti social acts and worse. A simple measure to drastically reduce such problems is gating alleyways. Sounds easy - so I thought. The first act as a councillor was to arrange a pot of money to fund gating alleyways. Boy, is it hard to gate them. You have to obtain agreement from everyone who has legal access. Once you have agreement to gate an alleyway you need to arrange keys for everyone, who can provide emergency access. The list of issues and problems is long, very long.

So I’m delighted to report that the alleyway from Northcross Road behind the Palmerston has now been gated.

That an alleyway on Ashbourne Grove is imminent. We’re working on an Elsie Road one, and a Chesterfield Grove alleyway. We’re working on another but need to talk to residents more before telling anyone else.

If you know of any alleyway in East Dulwich that would ideally be gated please do get in touch.

A study by the University of West Virginia in the US has found that owners of ‘vicious’ dogs are more likely to commit vicious crimes themselves.

Owners of dogs classed by the American Kennel Club as breeds with a high risk of causing injuries to humans - i.e. vicious dogs were asked to take part in a questionnaire. The study showed revealed that American owners of vicious dogs were significantly more likely to admit crimes such as fighting people, vandalism, illegal drug use.

I wonder if this applies to Brits and their dogs?

Last year the East Dulwich councillors Richard Thomas, Jonathan Mitchell and myself established a £50,000 Crime Reduction fund.

One idea from the East Dulwich Police Safer Neighbourhood Team Sergeant Duncan Jackson was for a hand held metal detector. I warmly accepted it and we quickly made our first purchase. The idea being that Police officers with a pocket metal detector could sweep someone they stopped for metals objects whether knives, guns or even needles. The first type we purchased was a big flat thing that could with a squeeze fit in a large pocket. Not very hand held. So we tried the next type. This attaches via a holder to a standard issue Police belt. They’ve tried it and found it works a treat and it has made searching must less intrusive and much safer for officers. It has sped up searches and we’ve made sure that the sgt. and both police constables have them.

In fact they’ve been so helpful in reassuring Police officers, being less intrusive during stop and searches and finding things that a finger tip search might not, that I suggested to our Executive member Paul Kyriacou and council Leader Nick Stanton that we had a winning idea and that we should find the money to kit out all frontline Police and enforcement officers in Southwark. That money was finally agreed early January and an order placed.

That order delivered in early March and now all frontline Police and council enforcement officers and our Community Wardens have them.

If you carry guns or knives or needles in Southwark your chance of being caught has been dramatically increased.

I’m sure everyone is as shocked as I am that a shooting  incident has taken place in the Barry Road area of East Dulwich.

I understand the Police have launched a murder investigation.

At a suitable time my fellow East Dulwich councillors Richard Thomas and Jonathan Mitchell and I will be talking to the Police understand what has happened and what the next steps are.

The East Dulwich councillors - Richard Thomas, Jonathan Mitchell and myself - helped establish a Crime Reduction fund in East Dulwich ward.

The latest actions this fund is taking is the purchase of 50 Alertboxes to create an electronic neighbourhood watch scheme in Crystal Palace Road between Whateley Road and Lordship Lane. This patch is a crime hotspot for East Dulwich as identified by the East Dulwich Police Safer Neighbourhood team. This enhanced electronic neighbourhood watch should see neighbours working more closely together.

Combined with SelectaDNA property marking kits the Police will engage residents to install Alertboxes and demonstrate how to use them. Installing the Alertboxes will magnify neighbours looking out for each other and we should see a dramatic reduction in reported crime.

The Government has decided to create 200 new bail hostels without publicy telling anyone where they are thinking of putting them. In secret they plan to talk with senior Police and council officers around the country.

Until very recently friends lived next to such a hostel. They had significant problems because mechanisms to manage it and the residents were not in place. The governments idea to create 200 new hostels without involving the public to ensure such governance mechanisms are in place is irresponsible.

Bail hostels are clearly needed. If they are ineffective offenders will be more likely to reoffend or not integrate fully into society. Without consulting with the public or having to follow the full planning process such checks and balances will not be in place.

Frankly such behaviour is soft on crime and the causes of crime. If you happen to come across one in East Dulwich please do get in touch so we can try and ensure it helps the residents rehabilitate and doesn’t cause local issues for residents.

The Beckley Foundation http://www.beckleyfoundation.org/ has produced a report about drugs policy. Its research states that alcohol and tobacco drugs are the most harmful in terms of numbers badly affected and the affects on users and society. Then other illegal drugs and lastly cannabis. They’ve suggested that most of the harm from cannabis is criminalising people, that criminals produce cannabis that is very high strength and more likely to cause physchosis as so much is now grown indoors under continuous lighting.

They will be proposing to the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna during March about cannabis that ”The damage done by prohibition is worse than from the substance itself”. Dynamite. They propose legalisation, taxation, controls in terms of adult use only and restricted strength. They don’t suggest its a healthy substance but that criminalising so many young people is more harmful than the ill effects it causes. Equally they point out roughly 80% of illegal drug use is of cannabis. That if cannabis use was legally controlled then crime enforcement could be concentrated on the 20% of ‘harder’ drugs. Imagine five times the resources targetted on heroin and cocaine crime.

Lambeth Police took a softly softly approach over cannabis which seemed to backfire as it attracted many people from outside Lambeth looking for drugs. That was bad news.

I don’t feel comfortable with this report and the challenges to my personal beliefs it presents. But the harm reported by keeping cannabis illegal feels compelling.

The Scientific evidence is such that the UK government should seriously investigate what would be best overall policy for fighting the harmful affects of drugs in the UK. Clearly the current ‘war on drugs’ feels lost and changing the game in some way is necessary.

While out and about in East Dulwich and Southwark generally I see and report and have removed a lot of graffiti. I make about 4 or 5 reports a week.  You get to wondering how graffiti can be stopped permanently.

The East Dulwich Lib Dem councillors have funded over 1,000 SelectaDNA property marking kits. They retail at £47.95 each so huge investment in making East Dulwich a much harder target to burglars.

I wonder if the two technologies - spray cans and DNA style property marking kits could be combined. Register purchasers of spray cans. When graffiti found take sample of the paint and match it to the original registered purchaser. Who in their right mind would use spray cans for graffiti ever again.

National legislation would be required but what a different England would look like with no graffiti.

The Labour Government has backed down from it proposals for locally elected representatives on new Police boards.

We could have had the situation where locally elected councillors were seeking one thing from the Police and this conflicted with locally elected Police board representatives views.

I’m not clear what the new proposals are but hopefully they involve using already locally elected councillors.

The latest queens speach setting out the Labour governments legislative plans included the proposal of elected a few members of Plice authorities.

So the proposal is to elect a minority of Police authorities members. Police authorities, except in extreme circumstances, influence local Police but don’t control or direct them. So we’re being asked to vote for people who infuence an influencing board of the Police. We’re being asked to elect a minority of members of those boards. How will that change anything?

Ideally local Police should have priorities set politically by elected politicians.  Those politicians should be on the hook for local taxation to pay for local Police. That is the way for real locally accountable poltiics of local Policing.

East Dulwich has had ZERO residential burglaries for two months. Zero residential burglary for two month. That is amazing.

In the summer East Dulwich councillors Richard Thomas, Jonathan Mitchell and myself agreed funding a crime prevention fund of nearly £50,000 from our bit of the annual Cleaner, Greener, Safer funding.

A large slab of this has been spent on over a 1,000 SelectaDNA (www.selectadna.co.uk) property marking kits. Aiming for every fifth home to have this property marking and homes that have been previously burgled or are in the proximty of homes that have been burgled. The East Dulwich Safer Neighbourhood Team has been helping residents install these marking kits. Every school in East Dulwich has been given these kits. We also purchased UV lights for the Police to quickly spot marked property.

Even business burglaries are down. Four over the last two months. Two were pubs. They have now been property marked and helping promote these property marking kits.

Fingers crossed zero burglaries continues. As all the property marking kits are used the chances of burglars being caught and successfully prosecuted rises making East Dulwich an increasingly inhospitable area for burglars.

If you live in East Dulwich and have’nt yet had a SelectaDNA property marking kit installed by the Police then please do get in touch with me. 

The Met Police have introduced an alternative number to 999 for non emergency calls. Amazingly it the unmemorable 0300 123 1212.

Why could’nt they choose a memorable number - 0300 300 300 or something like that?

The end result of such a daft forgetable number will be lots of people still ringing 999.

At Mayoral question time London’s tory Mayor Boris Johnson was asked about the number of uniformed Police officers - the ones you see walking around on patrol or speeding past in cars.

He could’nt gurantee the current numbers would be increased or even remain the same!

He must at least occassionally read the papers, or speak to ordinary Londoners like you or me. He must know we’re worried about crime? Perhaps not.

Tell him if you think we need more Police in Southwark.

 [if you look at his website you’ll see ads for books suggesting global warming is a swindle - hello Boris smell the coffee]

The latest decision relating to Southwarks street lighting have been taken including those in East Dulwich. The East Dulwich Lib Dem cllr Richard Thomas, Jonathan Mitchell and myself made an electoral promise in May 2006 that all East Dulwich street lighting will meet modern standards by May 2010. Such street lighting helps reduce crime and the fear of crime.

This years decision and plan is that the following five East Dulwich streets will have upgrades to modern white lighting:
East Dulwich Road
Goodrich Road
Grove Vale
Lordship Lane
Upland Road

If you’d like to see SON and White Halide street lighting in situ they can be seen on  Whateley Road and Landcroft Road.

Two peace protesters attend a peaceful political meeting in Walworth. A Police photographer wanted to take their photo. They objected to this as they had done nothing wrong. They were arrested and then found guilty of obstructing a Police officer doing his duty.

Is it really a Police officers duty to take photos of citizens attending lawful peaceful political meetings. Orwell 1984 eat your heart out - even you didn’t think of this oppressive form of state Police behaviour. Putin in Russia would be reticent in authorising Russian Police to do this.

I hope that the Police refrain from continuing this practice. Such heavy handed tactics loose the Police friends, politises the Police, and law abidding citizens need the Police to maximise the number of friends they have.

The Metropolitam Police have created a website graphically showing crime rates by Borough, ward and aub ward basis:

http://maps.met.police.uk

It shows that Southwark has above average crime rates. That East Dulwich has Average crime rates and that every sub ward area has average crime rates in East Dulwich.

The East Dulwich councillors Richard Thomas, Jonathan Mitchell and myself are determined to reduce crime rates in East Dulwich.
Our decisions to fund Alertboxes, gate alleyways appear to already be making inroads in crime rates.
All three of us also avidly report graffiti and other local eco crime issues.

Today East Dulwich cllrs Jonathan Mitchell and I (cllr Richard Thomas is on holiday), along with Greater London Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon met with Southwarks Police Commander Malcom Tillyer along with other Police and MPA officers.

A very useful third meeting to discuss the future of East Dulwich Police Station.

We discussed the East Dulwich councillors proposals of how a Police station as we would see it could be kept on the current site, combined potentially with other council facilities, while meeting Police aspirations for new facilities commensurate with their requirements while obtaining capital receipts for the site.

Unfortuntely everything is on hold while the Metropolitan Police Authority reviews it property plans. Hopefully, in 4-8 weeks time we can continue these discussions.

Southwark Council and Southwark Police have been recognised for excellent partnership working. Hopefully we can deliver a role model in East Dulwich that takes such partnership working to an even higher level by sharing facilities and increasing how joined up services are for the general public. If successful this could be a model for other sites in Southwark and London as a whole.

The East Dulwich Safer Neighbourhood Team have requested that the East Dulwich councillors via our Crime Reduction fund buy two trial pocketable metal detectors. The beauty of these is that they can be carried easilly in a pocket. If/when officers stop someone and search them they can use a metal detector and reduce the level of intimacy of a manual search, reduce the time it takes and increase the likelyhood of finding any hidden metal items.

Even detecting one extra knife and taking it out of circulation will have made this funding worthwhile.

We await the results of this initial trial.

Last year for England crime dropped by 10% nationally but knife crime is still a problem. 22,151 reported knife crimes occurred with half of these in inner London, Manchester and Birmingham.

To help the East Dulwich Safer Neighbourhood Team find knives before they are used to commit a crime the East Dulwich councillors are using Cleaner, Greener, Safer funds to purchase a metal detector wand so small it can fit in a shirt pocket. T

Hopefully this little device will work as hoped and help the local East Dulwich find any knives out their. Hopefully, they wont have any to find. Even finding one knife will be a huge success.

If this devices proves useful we’ll fund others.

This year the East Dulwich councillors Richard Thomas, Jonathan Mitchel and I have allocated £42,450 out of our £120,000 Cleaner Greener Safer funding allocation towards Crime Reduction. We’ve met the East Dulwich Safer Neighbourhood Team Sgt. Duncan Jackson and agreed the initial spending. These monies are on top of the £35,000 last year and £15,000 the previous year.

175 Alertboxes - proven to reduce shop and busines crime by over half

2,000 Smartwater/Select DNA type property marking kits to make burglary pointless

New Neighbourhood Watch signs

Laser speed camera and mobile traffic calming message board 

When I was elected in May 2006 East Dulwich ward was 267th out of all 625 London wards, with 1st being best, for rates of crime per thounsand population.  We’ve helped improve this so that in East Dulwich we’re now 221st in London and improving. Roughly this means 130 fewer reported crime victims last year.

At long last Caffe Nero, having spouted considerable vitriol about Southwark Council, East Dulwich residents, council officers, and after the latest 30 day deadline, Caffe Nero have finally removed two noisy illegal and ugly air conditioning units they’d installed within a few feet of residents bedroom windows.

I never thought I’d quote the “unacceptable face of capitalism” and think it resonated with the appalling actions of a business located in East Dulwich.

Imagine what it must have been like having these units feet away from your bed, working 24/7, and being particualrly noisy in summer when you need to have your bedroom window open to keep cool.

At last some good news for these residents who can finally get a good nights sleep.

Southwark is one of two local authorities in the country taking part in an average speed camera trial. Barry Road was recently considered for this trial. I have had a number of East Dulwich residents complaining about excessive speeding and so have my Liberal Democrat ward colleagues cclr Richard Thomas and cllr Jonathan Mitchell.

Barry Road over the last three years has had two people seriously injured and 28 slightly injured so clearly lots of pain and suffering.  Barry Road at its junction with Underhill Road had six, four around Etherow Street and the school, seven at the junction with Eynella Road.

The requirements to consider a road for the trial included producing speed stats of the current situation. 63,527 travelled along Barry Road between 12 and 20 March. 1.49% exceeded the 40mph speed limit. The average speed was 25.7mph but 20% of vehicels travelled greater than 30mph.

So average speed cameras to enforce the 40mph aren’t really necessary. But changing the speed limit to 30mph to reflect the reisdential nature of Barry Road would seem long overdue.

Drink driving is up in Southwark by 14%. This compares to London-wde figures where charges for a positive breath test have gone down by 10%. How very disappointing and life threatening.

Several years ago the Traffic Police service in south London was decimated.  Perhaps this is one of the results. All the research shows that Traffic Police patrols are one of the two most effective means to reduce average traffic speeds to the speed limit - the other being average speed cameras.

This week the council executive of eight Lib Dem and two Tory executive councillors finalised budget recommendations for the next three years.  Considerable debate has taken place and several months of hard work by council officers and coalition councillors to reach this point.

The council leader Cllr Nick Stanton has done an exemplary job in keeping all the coalition councillors informed and involved.

It’s worth reminding ourselves that 70% of council revenues are provided by central government. That the Labour government has decided to use 2004 population figures and not more recent figures. As the population is dramatically rising in London and South East, 2004 population fugures results in less money for Southwark but benefits Labour heartlands up the M1. Councils with signifcant deprivation (Southwark is the 20th most deprived council in UK) are getting real term cuts from the Labour government for the next three years as opposed to councils such as Rotherham (the 50th most deprived) which is seeing dramatic real terms increased.

Considerable savings will be made by centralising many council offices into a new office on Tooley street. God knows where we’d be if this wasn’t already in progress.

Social care is being consulted on to stop providing care for those with moderate needs. Community Warden services will have fewer wardens and manager. Meals on wheels where Southwark is the cheapest in London will see price increases. Livesey childrens museum will close. A review of all three historic town halls will take place. Some council funded events will see cuts or no more funding. A whole host of other cuts will be made.

No one likes or wants cuts. Considering the dreadful hand of cards dealt by the government I think the residents of Southwark have had the best possible result.

The latest crime stat for London are available on the Metropolitan Police website. It shows that reported crime in East Dulwich has taken a sharp dip. Some of this is due to the Police more accurately showing East Dulwich political ward boundaries. But most of the dip can’t be explained in this way.

Much of the dip is due to the hard decisions the three Liberal Democrat councillors have taken to spend local Cleaner, Greener, Safer money in ways suggested by the local Crime Prevention Officer. Things like Alertboxes and gating alleyways. We’ve also been following up our promise to ensure all East dulwich streets have good modern street lighting levels.

So 2006 East Dulwich has 99.72 crime per thousand population. During 2007 this dropped to 86.16 crimes per thousand. This means we’ve gone from being the 3rd to 2nd best ward for lowest reported crime levels in Southwark. The next round of Cleaner, Greener, Safer applications has opened with a closing date of 31 March for applications.

Again we’ll be taking extra heed of what the evidence tells us will reduce crime when deciding between schemes. In one years time I expect to be able to say that East Dulwich is no.1 for lowest reported crime in Southwark. Watch this space….

The latest annual report by the UK based Privacy International advocacy group tells us that an increase in survelliance and decline in privacy safeguards globally has occurred during the last year.

The UK earned top place for having the most endemic surveillance due to having the biggest network of CCTV in the world + Labour plans for a national compulsory ID card rich with personal and biometric information, and minimal comeback for citizens when the government looses this information. And you know they will loose that information.

The report states that the UK Labour government “has access to its people and technology that China doesn’t”. We seem to have runaway adoption of such technologies with little or no progress in safeguards to ensure fair play for you and me as private citizens.

The latest cost estimate by the London School of Economics of the Labour governments ID card plan is £12 to £18 billion during the next ten years. Think how many Police officers that could pay for. Or how fantastic the reabilitation of prisoners could be, dramatically reducing reoffending rates.

The Youth Justice Board, which runs the Labour flagship Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme, said the re-offending rate was “very high” or in plain english 91% re-offended within two years!

What do you think the Labour government should spend our tax money on - ID cards, more Police or getting criminals rehabilitated?

In October the three East Dulwich Liberal Democrat Councillors Cllr Richard Thomas, Jonathan Mitchell and I allocated £25,000 to help fight shop crime in East Dulwich. This was the number one priority for investment from the local Crime Prevention Officer.

Just before Christmas another 100 traders in East Dulwich signed up for Alert boxes - a proven method to reduce shop crime by typically 57%. The Alert Boxes have been programmed and will be delivered during mid January.

Big thanks to the East Dulwich Safer Neighbourhood Team and council officers nad project managers for making this happen - Andrea Allen, Sarah De Souza and all the traders who have joined in the scheme.

A by election in the Riverside Ward in Southwark gave me a huge de jevu feeling. While canvassing for the excellent Liberal Democrat candidate Anood Al-Samerai I kept coming across Labour leaflets with covers identical to those used in East Dulwich in 2006. Same broken windows on estates not located in Southwark. Same Police officers in uniforms that the Metropolitan Police have never used - looked like West Midlands Police officers. All stating that Liberal Democrats are soft on crime. Err, that would be Southwark with crime down ahead of tough targets set by central government through hard work of Liberal Democrat run Southwark Council working with the Police.

I also had the same de jevu that voters in Riverside would see straight through such rubbish. They duly did and Anood virtually received 50% of the votes - 1,114 out of 2,248 and extended the majority over Labour.

Well done Anood.

Last year I applied for 32 Alertboxes costing £5,000 - little boxes that send alerts to neighbouring businesses who can rush to help resolve a problem. Really useful at getting people to talk to neighbouring shops and offices and has a happy benefit of building up a community feelingh. They were installed in Lordship Lane and Northcross Road. If you look carefully in shop doors and windows you’ll see little stickers telling you shops that have them. During the first year the Crime Prevention Officer reported a 57% reduction in crime where these Alertboxes have been installed. WOW!

On this basis the East Dulwich coucillors - Richard Thomas, Joanthan Mitchell and myself - have allocated £25,000 to saturate East dulwich with this technology before March.

If only fighting all crime was this obvious and straightforward.