Tackling crime

Wanstead Village ward councillors Jo Blackman, Daniel Morgan-Thomas and Paul Donovan discuss crime and the work they do to keep crime rates low, and urge residents to engage with local police.

Rates of reported crime are relatively low in Wanstead Village. Social media can exaggerate the risk of crime as we can hear more quickly about incidents that we wouldn’t otherwise be aware of.

But every crime committed is one too many, and as Wanstead Village councillors, we are doing all we can to make our ward even safer.

Central government cuts have had a drastic impact on policing levels as well as the level of support provided to vulnerable people and young people.

We have campaigned for more resources for our local police and were pleased to hear that there is now a full team of two police officers (PC Paul Spencer and PC Hannah Vincent) and one community support officer (PCSO Shyam Aubeelack) after a period of reduced capacity.

One area where the council can help is with CCTV and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras. We were pleased to hear that CCTV and ANPR cameras recently installed by the council following requests from us and the police have proved an effective deterrent locally, and we have identified other cameras in need of an upgrade in our ward.

We meet regularly with the local police and can raise concerns where residents contact us with specific points about problem areas. We also regularly attend Neighbourhood Watch meetings to follow up local issues.

We encourage all members of the public to ensure all crimes are reported, otherwise it is impossible for us or the police to follow up.

Even if the police are unable to respond immediately, reports help them identify patterns of behaviour, target patrols to certain areas and build up their intelligence.

The local police hold regular drop-in sessions, which are an opportunity to raise any local concerns. These are detailed on the Wanstead Village Directory event listings pages.

Residents are also welcome to attend our advice service, which takes place at 10am on the second and fourth Saturday of every month at the vestry, Christ Church.

Working together, the community, council and police can help tackle crime in Wanstead Village. And we will continue to do what we can to tackle crime in our area.