SUTTON SOUTH WARD POLICE/COMMUNITY PANEL MEETING 5 JANUARY 2016

Trish and Richard attended their first local meeting of 2016 when they attended the consultative panel for Sutton South Ward set up by the police, on January 5, in Christchurch hall.

The police had reported at the previous meeting that that there had been a further fall in the total number of crimes in our Ward in the most recent three month period, a fall of 1.5% compared to the period a year previously. The downward trend has continued and data were presented to the meeting to show that the number of residential and non-residential burglaries in the last four months are down compared to the figures for the corresponding period in 2014. Sutton South Ward continues to have one of the lowest crime rates in London. It will be difficult to reduce it further.

Priorities remain tackling burglary, anti-social behaviour and speeding. The police are continuing to conduct some evening and night patrols with the objective of tackling rough sleepers in certain blocks of flats.

The threat to the future of PCSOs (Police Community Support Officers, the backbone of our neighbourhood policing approach) remains a matter of concern.

An exercise to test public satisfaction with the police has found that satisfaction rates are highest in Sutton, of all London boroughs.