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I’m currently putting the finishing touches to my presentation for tonight’s public meeting on our community safety priorities for the year.

I’m told that, from the acceptances we’ve received so far, the venue is nearing capacity and we may have to open up the public gallery as an overflow!

However, if you are interested in finding out and influencing what the council, police, probation service and other partners have as their priorities for the year then come along tonight, we should be able to squeeze you in!

The annual ‘Face the Public’ meeting is being held in the Council Chamber at the Town Hall on Wandsworth High Street.  It starts at 6pm and should last no longer than 90 minutes.

UPDATE: The venue has now been moved.  The meeting will be in the Civic Suite, still on Wandsworth High Street.  Police Cadets are helping with the organisation and will be able to point you in the right direction.

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lavender-hill-police-stationI have tended to shy away from national politics and issues in this blog, keeping it more focused on local and council issues. However, one subject that increasingly concerns me is the erosion of civil liberties in this country. Yesterday saw another little chunk of our freedoms eroded with section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act coming into force.

Photographers must now be a careful they don’t get the police in their photos for fear of arrest.

I have an interest in this because I have already (late last year, before s76 was in force) been stopped by the police for taking a photo.  I was on Lavender Hill and my sin was to get a police car in a photo taken near Lavender Hill police station.  Four officers questioned me because, apparently, my behaviour was suspicious – something I refused to acknowledge (though I would later admit it was a truly awful photo, bad framing and a bit of camera shake).  I suppose you could argue that Al-Qaeda don’t realise those white cars with orange stripes are the police.  I think it a bit unlikely.

This is already a remarkably common occurence.  Within days of being stopped myself, I heard, through friends, of two other people who had been stopped and searched under section 44 of the Terrorism Act for taking photos at Clapham Junction.  It seems that even before section 76 you had to be worried if you were innocently taking a photo.

I would stress I do not blame the police for this.  They have to act according to the laws the government makes, and they have to fulfil their targets.  The people I do blame are the government.  And I’m not alone in this – Stella Rimington, a former head of MI5, today saying that Ministers are using the fear of terror to restrict civil liberties.  One of her comments deserves quoting in full:

It would be better that the government recognised that there are risks, rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism – that we live in fear and under a police state

Now you can argue that, of course, they aren’t going to be stopping the innocent tourist or hobbyist photographer.  So what’s the point of the power?  I’m guessing the average terrorist tries to blend in rather than look like a terrrorist, which implies the police are either going to have to question lots of innocent people in the hope of catching a terrorist, or they are going to have to rely on other intelligence.  If the latter is the case, then why do they need powers like those given under the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Counter Terrorism Act 2008?

Many years ago I would have said that a police state could never happen in this country.  Nowadays, it seems the Blair and Brown governments don’t just want to show that it could, they are actually working to make it a reality.

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Here’s the crime briefing for burglary and street crime reported in Wandsworth between 5 and 12 February, 2009.

The map is hosted by Google, and occasionally will not load, or will not load the flags, especially if you are on a slow connection. If it does not display correctly, try refreshing the page or following the link directly under the map. As usual there are some health warnings following the map.


View Larger Map

  1. Yellow flags represent burglaries and red flags represent street crime reported between 5 and 12 February, 2009.
  2. The briefing only contains details of burglaries and robberies. Other crimes are not included.
  3. You can see more detail by following the link to the Google website.
  4. The flags are not placed precisely (it would be irresponsible to advertise victims of burglary) but instead are spaced roughly equally on the roads they took place. The idea is to give a visual representation of the spread and range of crime in Wandsworth, rather than pinpointing crime locations.
  5. While I try to ensure the data is accurate it is reliant on the information I receive, and I’m only human, so it may be mistakes have crept in. Please let me know if you think you’ve spotted one.
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The latest crime figures show crime continues to fall in Wandsworth, and that it remains the safest inner London borough – there’s been a 6.9% drop in overall crime in the past year.

But what next?

One of the things the council, along with the police and other partners, have been working on recently has been the strategic priorities.  Part of this process is a public meeting, where we present the ‘draft’ priorities and members of the public can let us know what they think and their concerns.

The ‘Face the Public’ meeting is being held at 6pm on Thursday, 19 February, in the council chamber at the Town Hall.  The meeting should last no longer than 90 minutes.

If you are interested in your borough, and what is done to make it safer, come along and talk to us.

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The Regeneration and Community Safety OSC meeting on Monday spent a lot of time discussing the proposed priorities for the Partnership Strategy Group for the forthcoming year. And it was quite right to do this, these are going to be the priorities that the police and other partners have in their work for the next year.  I’ll be putting some stuff on this site about them in due course.

However, it did mean that other items on the agenda perhaps didn’t get the attention they deserved, partly because of the time, and partly because council meetings often focus on where there is disagreement between partners – most of these items were good news.

In an attempt to redress that I’m just going to briefly outline some of them (and link to the associated council report).

Junior and Safer Citizen Schemes
Council report
Junior Citizen schemes are commonplace now and few council’s don’t run a scheme of some type.  However Wandsworth was one of the first, and this year it celebrated its 20th year.

The  scheme involves exposing 10 year olds (there are 2,000 places a year) to a variety of scenarios to teach them about safety.  The scenarios are delivered by a range of partners and not just the council, so children meet fire fighters, police and ambulance staff as well as council officers.

It has recently been accredited by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents for its quality and in November the Safer Citizen scheme (which focuses on young disabled people) won a Safer Community Award from the Suzy Lamplugh Trust.

Neighbourhood Watch Strategy
Council report
It isn’t a very sexy title, but I think this is a very exciting project. Wandsworth has long been a strong supporter of Neighbourhood Watch (NW), the council is something of a rarity since in most places NW is run by the police rather than the council.  Here, it has meant a very strong NW community has developed and can get support from a dedicated group of council officers.

However, we did perhaps concentrate on quantity rather than quality.  And this makes sure this isn’t the case in the future.  For a start it sets out what everyone can expect from a NW scheme, so co-ordinators know what they have to do, but also what support they can expect from the council and their local Safer Neighbourhood Team.  It will also develop some of the innovative schemes like the training we offer to co-ordinators on flooding.  It very much turns NW into NW+ and strengthens and consolidates NW as part of the borough’s crime fighting partnership.

‘Not in my Neighbourhood’ Week
Council report
‘Not in my Neighbourhood’ Week is a Home Office scheme the council has participated in since its creation in 2007.  Wandsworth has been one of the most enthusiastic participants, organising a series of events for the week which promote and assist in crime prevention.  There were too many events to list here, but they ranged from a barbecue for students (to get across specific messages about student safety) to tea parties for the elderly (to teach them how to avoid suffering distraction burglarly) and a whole load of street stalls that you probably passed in one of the town centres.

None of it would have been possible without the dedication and enthusiasm of the council’s Community Safety Division who deserve congratulating for the work they do all year round.

If you have any concerns it might be worth taking a look at the council’s Community Safety website.

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Below is the map of crime reported to the police between 30 January and 5 February.

Thank-you to everyone who provided feedback on the mapping after my request last time, and to repeat my request, if you have any thoughts on how the mapping should or can be developed please drop me a line at cllr@jamescousins.com.

The map is hosted by Google, and occasionally will not load, or will not load the flags, especially if you are on a slow connection. If it does not display correctly, try refreshing the page or following the link directly under the map. As usual there are some health warnings following the map.


View Larger Map

  1. Yellow flags represent burglaries and red flags represent street crime reported between 30 January and 5 February.
  2. The briefing only contains details of burglaries and robberies. Other crimes are not included.
  3. You can see more detail by following the link to the Google website.
  4. The flags are not placed precisely (it would be irresponsible to advertise victims of burglary) but instead are spaced roughly equally on the roads they took place. The idea is to give a visual representation of the spread and range of crime in Wandsworth, rather than pinpointing crime locations.
  5. While I try to ensure the data is accurate it is reliant on the information I receive, and I’m only human, so it may be mistakes have crept in. Please let me know if you think you’ve spotted one.
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Finally, full blown crime mapping.

I’m publishing the whole of Wandsworth as one post. There are a few reasons for this which all revolve around the administrative boundaries the police and council use. Basically they have different definitions of Battersea, Putney and Tooting (the police put Balham in Tooting and Fairfield in Putney, the council have them both in Battersea). In real life, most people do not think about those boundaries, and criminals certainly don’t – hence a single Wandsworth map.

The map is hosted by Google, and occasionally will not load, or will not load the flags, especially if you are on a slow connection. If it does not display correctly, try refreshing the page or following the link directly under the map. As usual there are some health warnings following the map.

View Larger Map

  1. Yellow flags represent burglaries and red flags represent street crime reported between 16 and 30 December, 2008.
  2. The briefing only contains details of burglaries and robberies. Other crimes are not included.
  3. You can see more detail by following the link to the Google website.
  4. The flags are not placed precisely (it would be irresponsible to advertise victims of burglary) but instead are spaced roughly equally on the roads they took place. The idea is to give a visual representation of the spread and range of crime in Putney, rather than pinpointing crime locations.
  5. While I try to ensure the data is accurate it is reliant on the information I receive, and I’m only human, so it may be mistakes have crept in. Please let me know if you think you’ve spotted one.
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If you have followed my crime mapping posts you will know there have been a series of problems in the transmission of data between the police and the council.  These are now resolved and this is a catch-up map.  It covers two weeks of data, but is for street crime only (although for the burglaries that took place we do not have the location data for these two weeks).  It will return for the next map.

I have been producing these maps for some time, and have some ideas for how they should develop. However, I know they are a popular feature on the site and I would be interested in hearing your thoughts. If you have any comments or ideas, please drop me a line at cllr@jamescousins.com.

The map is hosted by Google, and occasionally will not load, or will not load the flags, especially if you are on a slow connection.  If it does not display correctly, try refreshing the page or following the link directly under the map.  As usual there are some health warnings following the map.


View Larger Map

  1. Yellow flags represent burglaries and red flags represent street crime reported between 16 and 30 December, 2008.
  2. The briefing only contains details of burglaries and robberies. Other crimes are not included.
  3. You can see more detail by following the link to the Google website.
  4. The flags are not placed precisely (it would be irresponsible to advertise victims of burglary) but instead are spaced roughly equally on the roads they took place. The idea is to give a visual representation of the spread and range of crime in Wandsworth, rather than pinpointing crime locations.
  5. While I try to ensure the data is accurate it is reliant on the information I receive, and I’m only human, so it may be mistakes have crept in. Please let me know if you think you’ve spotted one.
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After a lengthy absence crime mapping will be returning to this website over the next couple of days, and then on a weekly basis.

Mapping was halted, temporarily while the police and council improved the security of the transmission of data between each other.  As is ever the case, this introduced new problems and resulted in only part of the data being transmitted.  These have now been dealt with and the data from the police is now coming securely and intact, so mapping can resume.

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st-georges-effort-streetIf you visit St George’s Hospital via the pedestrian entrance on Effort Street, SW17, you’ll have noticed that it’s been given a substantial facelift. What you probably didn’t realise is that it was done in conjunction with the council’s Community Safety Division.

I popped down there this morning, along with Steve Jiggins, who helped design the scheme, to have a look and chat with some of the St George’s staff involved.  The first thing anyone would notice is that the approach to the hospital is so much nicer, it’s a real visual improvement.  But Steve Jiggins work was not just a matter of making it look nicer.

The previous entrance had been a blank brick wall, with a couple of door-ways and, on the St George’s side large trees.  Aside from the fact that a blank wall is never that attractive, it meant that there was very limited visibility between the hospital and the street.  You would move from one side to the other without knowing what was there.  This was particularly dangerous if you were entering St George’s because it was straight onto an internal road, but it created a real fear of crime.

Add to this the lack of step-free access on this pedestrian route and it really didn’t create the welcome to the hospital St George’s are hoping to create with their new main entrance.

And this is where Steve Jiggins came in.  He helped design an entrance that was not only more pleasant, but a lot safer.  The use of railings means that you can see what is on the other side; so can the hospital’s CCTV.  It has included step-free access and there gateways no longer lead straight onto the hospital’s internal road.  Most importantly, by opening up the views and visibility it feels more welcoming and safer, thus reducing the fear of crime.

When people think of Community Safety they often think of the police and little else.  In fact the Community Safety Division do huge amounts of work, just like this, with private individuals and businesses, across the borough to make Wandsworth safer, and more pleasant, for everyone.

You can find out more about their at the Wandsworth Community Safety website.