Sutton police station
In Sutton we have an effective model for community / police consultation, with the Sutton Community and Police Forum covering the whole Borough and Ward panels covering each Ward, including the panel for our own South Sutton Ward. See the page on this site on “Sutton Police” for information on the Ward police panel.
Now the Mayor, and the Mayor’s Office for Policing (MOPAC), want to change this, abolishing the Forum and setting up a new set of bodies, Safer Neighbourhood Boards.
The Boards will replace existing groups such as our Community and Police Forum, long-standing groups that were established in the 1980’s as a result of the Scarman Report, which identified a collapse in relationships between the police and local communities as contributing to the 1981 Brixton Riots.
More worryingly, our South Sutton Ward Panel, where the police discuss crime trends in the Ward with local community groups, will no longer set the policing priorities. This is a backward step.
Policing priorities for the Ward – no longer set by the local panel – are burglary, motor vehicle crime and violence with injury. This last priority is not relevant to Sutton South, which is a low crime area with few such crimes. The police have agreed, at the Ward panel meeting on 11 December, to continue action on local priorities such as traffic and speeding.
We remain concerned that these changes will not help community / police consultation on crime and policing in our Ward.