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Readers with a particular interest in crime and community safety matters in Wandsworth, or indeed London, might be interested in taking a look at Neighbourhoodlink.

The new service from Metropolitan Police promises:

news and information about policing activity or initiatives, crime prevention advice as well as major incidents affecting your area

Given that it is a new service it’s a bit early to assess its usefulness, but for the sake of 30 seconds to sign up to something that could provide useful information when it’s needed, it’s probably worth signing up (you do not need to complete the questions about ethnic minority, gender or sexuality – which are, quite frankly, irrelevant to the service).

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Many of the issues that needed addressing in the council and police’s communication have been resolved, but a few kinks still need ironing out before the crime briefings can resume.

In the meantime, you can view the Met’s crime mapping – but to save you time the latest figures for Wandsworth on there are November 2008.  Crime for the borough is ‘average’.  Crime for each of the 20 wards is ‘average’.  And if you zoom into what the Met call sub-wards, you’ll find that for all but five crime is ‘average’ – the five that are not average are basically in town centres around transport hubs: Two sub-wards Clapham Junction and one each in Balham, Putney and Tooting.  They are all above average.

I briefly cover why I think the Met’s crime mapping is far from ideal as part of my first crime mapping post.

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There is going to be another gap until I can start publishing crime maps again.

The crime briefings that are used to produce the maps are created from data given to the council’s Community Safety Division by the police.  The Community Safety Division ‘sanitises’ the data to ensure that personal information does not get into the public domain.  It is important that victims are not identified in them.

Both the council and the police take the security of the data very seriously, and while there has not been a problem with the process they’ve decided to halt until a secure communication channel can be set-up.  Work is in progress on this, and will be completed within the next week or two.

In the meantime you can have a look at the Met’s crime maps.  I think these are still far from perfect (you can read why in a previous post) and it’s highly likely all you’ll discover is that crime is ‘average’ – but they are better than nothing.

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The public meeting of the Shaftesbury Safer Neighbourhood Team meeting is tonight at 7pm at Asda on Lavender Hill.  Asda kindly lend their meeting room for this, and there will be someone from the police to point you in the right direction.

This meeting is open to any resident of Shaftesbury Ward (if you aren’t sure which ward you live in the council has a postcode checker) and gives you the chance to meet your local SNT, hear what they have been doing and raise any issues you want.  Unfortunately it’s like all three councillors will be unable to attend because of other commitments, but we work closely with the SNT to deal with any issues members of the public raise.

It you can make it along then it’s well worth attending – the meetings are well run and usually last no longer than an hour.

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My attempt at crime mapping Tooting (which includes Earlsfield and Furzedown) is below. It is worth mentioning that this contains two weeks worth of data, so there is more than usual.
The map is hosted by Google, and occasionally will not load, or will not load the flags. If it does not display correctly, try refreshing the page or following the link directly under 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 Tooting, rather than pinpointing crime locations.
  5. This map is only for the Tooting parliamentary consitutuency – which is different to the police’s Putney sector.
  6. 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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A map of the Putney crime briefing (covering Putney, Southfields and Roehampton) is below. Like Putney, this represents 2 weeks data, so there is – obviously – more than usual on there.
The map is hosted by Google, and occasionally will not load, or will not load the flags. If it does not display correctly, try refreshing the page or following the link directly under 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. This map is only for the Putney parliamentary consitutuency – which is different to the police’s Putney sector.
  6. 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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Following the Christmas break the Community Safety Division are, again, publishing their crime briefings and I am, again, trying to map it.

The usual small print follows the map, but it is worth mentioning that this is two weeks worth of data, so the map is ‘busier’ than usual.  However, there does seem to be a bit more burglary.  I can only speculate why this might be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the presence of lots of new presents or homes vacated during the holidays didn’t play a part.
The map is hosted by Google, and occasionally will not load, or will not load the flags. If it does not display correctly, try refreshing the page or following the link directly under 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 Battersea, rather than pinpointing crime locations.
  5. This map is only for the Battersea parliamentary consitutuency – which is different to the police’s Battersea sector.
  6. 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 the Putney map shows how little crime there is, the Tooting map shows how crime often clusters around a specific area or set of roads. As usual, health warnings follow the map.
The map is hosted by Google, and occasionally will not load, or will not load the flags. If it does not display correctly, try refreshing the page or following the link directly under the map.

View Larger Map

  1. Yellow flags represent burglaries and red flags represent street crime reported between 9 and 16 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 Tooting, rather than pinpointing crime locations.
  5. This map is only for the Tooting parliamentary consitutuency – which is different to the police’s Tooting sector.
  6. 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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Since my council cabinet role doesn’t just cover Shaftesbury or Battersea I’ve prepared a similar crime map for Putney (and Tooting, which will follow later today). Below is the map, one thing I think it illustrates is how little crime there actually is – just seven burglaries and four robberies. As usual the health warnings follow the map.
The map is hosted by Google, and occasionally will not load, or will not load the flags. If it does not display correctly, try refreshing the page or following the link directly under the map.

View Larger Map

  1. Yellow flags represent burglaries and red flags represent street crime reported between 9 and 16 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. This map is only for the Putney parliamentary consitutuency – which is different to the police’s Putney sector.
  6. 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.