MINUTES OF ST. LEONARD’S WARD PANEL MEETING
HELD ON MONDAY 8TH JANUARY 2007 AT 7 P.M.

PRESENT: Lee Alley (Chair), Alan Davidson (Deputy Chair), Ruth Edwards (Treasurer), Rosalie Lawlor (Secretary), Inspector Richard Hall, Sgt. Trevor Struthers (SNT), Neil Thurlow (Community Safety Officer), ,Gillian Lunnon, Kay Adrians, Jenny Golding, Paula Veiga, Peter Lloyd, Gaye Weston-Simons,
Apologies: Cecily Krohn, Velda Lewis, Sharon Barker, Catherine Thompson-Glover, and all Councillors

1. Welcome

Lee Alley welcomed everyone to the meeting and introduced Inspector Richard Hall who is replacing Inspector Mark Egan.

2. Minutes of the Meeting dated 18.10.06 and Matters Arising

Lee Alley reported that he had met with the Chair of Streatham South only and had spoken briefly to the Chair of Streatham Wells.

Rosalie Lawlor apologised for the punctuation mistake in the Minutes.

3. Constitution

Lee Alley asked everyone if they agreed with the suggested Constitution, which was based on one suggested by the Police and has been adopted by Streatham South.

Under item 2. AIMS the provision of information to the community, Lee Alley reported he had spoken to John Roberts our representative on the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) and John Roberts had apologised for misleading the panel with regards to some funding. The £1,000 is not given to the panel directly, but to the SNT, but Inspector Hall said this money can be used for leafleting. Lee Alley said he would like to think about fund raising at some point next year.

Under item 4 AREA OF BENEFIT Alan Davidson suggested this should read: Consists of the ward within the London Borough of Lambeth as defined by the Boundary Commission of England and Wales.

Under item 8. MEETINGS Lee Alley recommended that we hold our AGM at the next meeting.
ACTION: LA

Lee Alley proposed the Constitution and Alan Davidson seconded the motion.

4. Police Update

Sgt. Struthers reported on crime figures since our last meeting and pointed out that these figures are off the Police system in the Streatham sub-command and are not official Government figures.

Recorded crime from 01.10.06 to 31.12.06 has decreased by 18.3%.

Within these figures there has been an increase in street crime and theft from motor vehicles. Street crime consists of snatch thefts, such as mobile ‘phones, rather than muggings and theft from motor vehicles is happening because motorists are leaving items on show. Sat navs are encouraging more crime and motorists should be aware that not only should they remove the sat nav from the dashboard, but the holder as well so that the thief is not alerted to the fact that there could be a sat nav hidden in the car. These figures do not reflect all crime that is happening in the area, but the main areas of concern.

A map of the ward showed where the crimes were happening, e.g. street crime and motor vehicle crime were prevalent in the area between Woodbourne Avenue and Prentis Road, street crime was prevalent around Gleneldon and Hopton Roads and motor vehicle crime and burglary was prevalent in the Natal Road and the border area with Streatham South.

Alan Davidson noted from the map of reported crime that there was a concentration of crime in the High Road on the western side. Sgt. Struthers explained that the ward has a higher crime rate historically and actually because of the transport hubs and entertainment centres.
It was commented because of this perhaps we should have a bigger team to deal with the size of area and problem. Lee Alley said resource levels will be looked at again at some time and there has been difficulty filling the staffing posts to 31.12.06. Inspector Hall said the staffing levels are running at minimum levels and for 999 response teams. He reassured the meeting by saying individual wards will be looked at to identify those areas with high crime levels and hopefully officers can be deployed accordingly.

Inspector Hall continued by saying St. Leonard’s is running an anti-robbery operation at the moment around the transport hubs, but he went on to explain that resources are difficult to get because they get concentrated in Brixton and Kennington. The Territorial Support Group (TSG) is working in this area now and the local police are lucky to have got them working here. Streatham does have the highest detection rate in the borough.

Peter Lloyd commented on the figure for burglaries and said he knew of 3 burglaries in his area and could not believe these were the total number for the ward. Sgt. Struthers said he would investigate, but it was pointed out that the police can only be aware of crime if it is reported to them.

ACTION: Sgt. Struthers

Police Report by Inspector Richard Hall

Inspector Hall reported that he has taken over from Inspector Mark Egan. Although Inspector Hall was based in Upper Norwood/Gypsy Hill he now spends most of his time in St. Leonard’s. He reported on an initiative which was introduced in the Knight’s Hill ward called the SNAC project, which he would like to run in Norwood
(this has also run successfully in Hammersmith and Fulham). This project aims to encourage youth groups to give something back to the community by way of events or work that benefit the community they live in. Groups are given some money by the police to help with setting up costs. Examples of the work are a group of young people baking cakes in an old peoples’ home, someone running a home cinema and revamping a play area. These schemes are a diversionary tactic to keep young people off the street. At the end of the 3 month period each project is judged at a special presentation evening and the winner receives a £1500 grant. Inspector Hall said if this initiative works, then he would like to make it a Streatham wide project.

Inspector Hill reported he is working with the Somalian community and has arranged for some football coaching to take place, hopefully this will break down barriers and he would also like to organise an after school project. Some Somalian youths are involved in crime.

The recent influx of Poles is causing problems due to the excessive drinking that takes place. Inspector Hall has been to see the Polish community in Balham, where they are well established, but the problem with Streatham’s Poles is they are new, transient and young people who work hard and have a tendency to get drunk, resulting in disorder and sometimes violence. Inspector Hall is going to visit Crewe where there is a well established Polish community to see if he can learn anything from them. He would like to create a drop in zone in the area for Polish people where Polish people, who are stopped by the police, can wait while checks on them are made in Poland to see if they have a criminal record there.

Thurlow Park ward will have 3 streets made a cold calling free zone for 1 – 2 months. Notices will be placed in the area warning of this. This is to crack down on fraudsters gaining entry to vulnerable peoples’ homes. Even the utility companies will have to telephone and arrange for visits to take place. Inspector Hall would like to introduce this on a large scale in Streatham, although he pointed out it is an expensive exercise to undertake.

Inspector Hall emphasised the importance of SN panels and the Police need to be told what residents’ want and he clearly wishes this to work in Streatham.

Gillian Lunnon remarked that better publicity about SNT would be desirable and there was a general discussion about ways to go about this. Inspector Hall is in contact with the Somalian and Polish communities and perhaps a notice could go in the Lambeth Life newsletter. Inspector Hall said the £1000 that he has can be used for leafleting. Lee Alley and Sgt. Struthers said they would get together to work on this.
ACTION: Lee Alley and Sgt. Struthers

Alan Davidson asked if attempts had been made to recruit officers from the ethnic minorities and Inspector Hall said that until he has more funding this cannot happen.

Peter Lloyd asked, in view of the big debate in the council this evening re. funding of street wardens, if we were to lose the street wardens, would we get more PCSOs instead?, but Inspector Hall could not answer this.

5. Reports by Officers:

MPA Community Engagement Conference – Rosalie Lawlor

We were told at the meeting that notes on this meeting would be
available before Christmas, I have not received any notes to date and Lee Alley confirmed he had not received anything yet.

Rosalie reported her opinion of the conference.

She attended the MPA Community Engagement Conference as a representative of this ward panel. There were approximately 200 attendees from members of ward panels, police officers, CPCG members and council members.

There was a panel of speakers and DAC Hitchcock was the first to report:- He is in charge of the SNT initiative and explained what the Met would like to achieve with this initiative, which is basically a reduction in crime and he reported that recorded crime is going down, although the fear of crime, anti-social behaviour and security issues are going up and there is a “reassurance gap” to be filled. He acknowledged that communities wanted the police to deliver more to fill this “reassurance gap”.

There are 630 safer neighbourhood teams, 493 neighbourhood panels, 283 are chaired by the community, 210 are chaired by the police and 15 boroughs have links to borough organisations. This means that the police are more visible, familiar to communities and answerable to communities. By the end of December 06 the Met is aiming to have a full complement of police personnel in each SNT.

DAC Hitchcock went through how the SNT works (which we all know by now), locally identifying problems, problem solving. He recommended the ward panel should consist of 10-12 people, a chair and all these people should be local to that community, police and other partners. The panels should establish 3 – 5 priorities.

Current issues to solve are attracting panel members, support and training for panel members, constitutions, variations in understanding the theory behind SNTs and integrating with existing consultation structures in boroughs.

The Chair of Camden SNT, Chris Fagg, spoke. He spoke quite quickly and this is the gist of what I could take down. Some of it is familiar to us.

The SNT there has been going to about 1 year. Their key
priority has been street drinking and anti social behaviour. A recent burglary initiative was a success and victims of crime are receiving visits from the police. Camden SNT created a no-drinking zone and warned sellers of alcohol not to sell alcohol to drunks.

He thought his role as chair was to ensure meetings flow easily, make sure everyone has their say, encourage communication with outside panels and liaise between departments. Their panel is community led, they meet every 2 months. There is a very good relationship with the police, shopkeepers and residents in the area. The impact has been a rapid. The police and different groups of the council have got together and there has been the closure of drug addresses, motor scooter nuisance has been dealt with and burglaries are down. Despite the local community’s delight with these successes they feel there could be more police on the team, for the size of area, some residents have difficulty getting through to the police on SNT line. The panel thought there could be an improvement in the 999 service, leaflets needed to be sent out to all addresses in the area with details and information about the SNT.

Ruth Ward, the Vice Chair of Enfield SNT spoke:-
She explained their group uses maps to highlight problem areas. She then went on to describe what seemed to be a complex management structure with a power point presentation with lots of acronyms. I personally found this off putting as the beauty of SNT is its simplicity and if you create layers of groups of people, you lose touch with what it is all about (my opinion).

I remember somebody spoke from Kingston and I was dismayed at how complicated their system of reporting appeared to be.

Again, it was like a management course with a power point
presentation of their reporting structures.

Will there be more constables? DAC Hitchcok reported that the number of constable numbers has gone up and is now reaching budget limit on its growth. There are 31,000 PCSOs funded by various bodies and this group of people is to get increased funding. PCSO represents the biggest group and can get bigger. They are the link between the community and the police proper. The government would like to give them more powers, but the Met is resisting this as they want them to keep “friendly”. The PCSO job is a well known route through which people become police officers.

How to reconcile government and local priorities:- One thought is the MPA must make sure the Met has priorities that are reasonable and what communities want and another thought is SNT’s work for their local communities and communities should have the priority over government priorities.

I asked if in future there would be a web site for all SNTs to
subscribe to so that we could learn good/bad practice from each other. I was thinking about the Camden success with street drinking and how do we get to know more about what they did. I was told this was definitely something the MPA would like to happen and the police do have a database of good practice.

The meeting went on to talk about CDRPs which are Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnerships. I do not know about these and it all got a bit too detailed for me.

We worked in two work shops. The organisers have put us into groups. The first work shop if I can remember correctly (I did not take notes as we did a lot of talking) was about SNT’s, what did people think of them, would they work with CPCGs . It was very well chaired, but the second work shop rather fell to pieces. I thought the chair was poor and I am not sure what it was all about really.

My overall impression of the conference is:-

It was a good idea to get SNT members together to network.
was delighted to learn we are extremely lucky in St. Leonard’s with our police and Sgt Struthers and their attitude to the SNT initiative. Listening to some of the audience, there are areas which are having great difficulty working with the police to set up the panels because either the police are not sure how to do it, or are opposed to the idea. This can be said of some councils and Lambeth would appear to be a good council in this respect.

I really do not know what the workshops were aiming to
achieve. As I said the first one was quite an interesting place to talk about the initiative, but I did not come away feeling I/we had achieved anything and the second one was a waste of time.

I think next year’s conference will be better because the
initiative will be more established and there will be more to
report.

CPCG Meeting 05.12.06

Lee Alley reported on his visit to the CPCG meeting at Waterloo. He had little to report on the meeting itself: Alastair Sutherland gave a cut down version of a speech he had heard before in Brixton and he noted there were a lot of interested groups attending, but the meeting afterwards was more fruitful. Lee Alley spoke to John Roberts, James Toohill and Anna Tapsell, who is the Chair of the CPSG. After speaking to other Chairs of ward panels, Lee Alley reiterated Rosalie’s observations from the MPA conference that we are extremely lucky with our SNT personnel, compared to other areas.

6. Discuss Current Community Safety Issues Requiring Attention.

Lee Alley reported that he and Sgt. Struthers have had some chats about what is going on in the area. There has been the increase in theft from vehicles especially around Estreham Road and Streatham Common railway station. Lee Alley has observed from walking around the area that motorists should be more careful about what they leave lying around in view in their cars.

Lee Alley also reported that should any of us live in an area where there has been an upsurge in crime, this will be reflected in our insurance premiums (he has noted this personally), i.e. for residents living around these areas where commuters leave their goods on show in their cars and their cars are broken into, the residents are suffering increased insurance premiums.

7. New Priorities

Lee Alley proposed street drinking is dropped in view of the cold weather, which is discouraging drinkers on to the streets, to be replaced with theft from cars.

Jenny Golding wished to see groups of youths with dogs congregating in her area to be tackled. Another resident said the youths sit on cars and she has had her car scratched by a key.

Neil Thurlow reported that new signage about cycling on the pavement will be in place by Easter (hopefully). The signage will start at Christchurch and go down to the common and down Streatham Vale Road. The signs will be up for a certain period of time and then removed in order to prevent complacency with the signage. If the cyclists then move on to the side road, signage can be erected there, again for a limited time.

Problems around St. Leonard’s church

Neil Thurlow has been in touch with Tfl. If a driver is caught relieving himself in public he can be sacked and if someone sees a driver doing this they are to note the time, the registration no. of the bus and the yellow tag no. on the side of the bus. There are no plans to erect public toilets in the area.

New Priorities:

1. Cycling on the pavement
ACTION: Neil Thurlow

2. Continuing engagement with groups of youths.
ACTION: Sgt. Struthers

4. Theft from vehicles
ACTION: Sgt. Struthers

5. Street drinking
Maintain a low level observation on street drinking unless it becomes an issue again.

8. Any Other Business

There was no other business

9. Date Of Next Meeting

It was suggested that the panel should meeting bi-monthly instead of every 3 months and after some discussion this was agreed.

The date of the next meeting will be 8th March, 2007 in the meeting room of the Synagogue in Prentis Road.

The meeting closed at 0844