Yesterday was the deadline for Cleaner, Greener, Safer funding applications. This flagship Southwark Liberal Democrat policy sets aside around £120,000 for each ward for capital projects and circa £5,000 for revenue events type projects.

As with previous years I’ve applied for funding to help reduce crime and the fear of crime. Previous years I’ve led on getting Alterboxes into East Dulwich shops. They’ve helped participating shops reduce shop crime by over 50% and engendered a more local shop community spirit.

East Dulwich ward was slightly better than average for crime being 274th/625 wards in London – 1 having the lowest crime rate in London. For Southwark East Dulwich has 2nd lowest crime rate out of 21 wards.  During the last year East Dulwich has improved slightly and is now 236th/625 wards in London but still no.2 in Southwark. So each resident in East Dulwich has a 8.5% chance of being affected by crime each year that they report to the Police. Still rather depressing. 

So this year I’ve applied, supported by my Liberal Democrat ward colleagues cllr Richard Thomas and cllr Jonathan Mitchell for things to further help reduce crime in East Dulwich. My personal aim is to help East Dulwich become a truely low crime ward, not just compared to other wards in Southwark but compared to London as a whole. To achieve this we will need to halve rates of crime in East Dulwich.

In about 6 weeks time we’ll know which applications won. The real work then begins.

 If you’d like to get involved the East Dulwich Safer Neighbourhood Team next meeting is 23 April contact me for further details.