The Public Safety Foundation
Our Founder, Rory Geoghegan, writes for LBC in response to the Met’s new turnaround plan:
The Met’s publication of their latest turnaround plan – ‘A New Met for London’ – will be one less item on the Commissioner’s to-do list, but the real test for whether Londoners have a new Met, will be whether anything feels different in London’s neighbourhoods and police stations.
It’s important to have a good plan – but wordy plans, long in the gestation, can have a tendency to feel far removed from the realities facing police officers and members of the public on London’s streets.
I’ve recently spent time on the ground in Hanwell – sandwiched between Ealing and Southall in west London.
There, I’ve witnessed first hand the persistent crime and disorder that is impacting on local residents and businesses: open and blatant dealing and use of crack and heroin, theft, threatening behaviour, and anti-social behaviour. The most unpleasant example perhaps being regular public urination and defecation at or near people’s homes and businesses.
It’s not that the police aren’t to be seen at all in Hanwell – it’s just that they are generally flying past on blue lights from one end of Uxbridge Road to the other. There seems to be a distinct lack of a specific plan to turn things around for the residents of Hanwell.
Read the piece in full: https://www.lbc.co.uk/opinion/views/metropolitan-police-battle-crime-public-trust-won-by-action-not-report/
