Lib Dem Crime Survey Reveals Huge Support For 24 Hour Police Station (Southwark Liberal Democrats)

Southwark Liberal Democrats <info@southwark-libdems.org.uk>

Lib Dem Crime Survey Reveals Huge Support For 24 Hour Police Station

February 17, 2006 12:00 PM

The East Dulwich Liberal Democrat Focus team have completed a comprehensive survey of local opinion on crime. The survey was put together by Focus team members James Barber, Jonathan Mitchell and Councillor Richard Thomas and hand-delivered by volunteers to over 5000 households.

Campaigners Jonathan Mitchell and James Barber outside East Dulwich police station

James Barber and Jonathan Mitchell campaigning for East Dulwich police station to be open 24 hours a day

The survey showed huge support for the Lib Dem campaign to open East Dulwich Police Station 24 hours a day. Nine out of ten of those who responded said that they would like to see the station have extended opening hours. East Dulwich Police Station is currently open between 6am and 10pm. But it is often outside of these hours that people need to contact the police. The East Dulwich area is being treated differently to others in Southwark. Walworth and Peckham police stations are open around the clock.

Council leader Nick Stanton has already written to the Borough Commander asking him to look at opening our station 24 hours a day.

Local campaigner, James Barber, said: "Our local Labour MP has imposed later pub opening hours on this residential area but the police station still shuts at 10pm. If we must have 24 hour licensing, we need 24 hour policing too."

Local Lib Dem FOCUS team member, Jonathan Mitchell, a criminal lawyer, says: "Longer opening hours make it easier to report crime. This is vital to fighting crime and obtaining successful prosecutions."

Other results of the Lib Dem Crime Survey include:

Environmental Crime

The survey revealed huge support for the Council's use of fines and legal powers to take on vandals and litter louts.

Before 2002 the council had many powers to issue fines, for example for littering, but these powers were NEVER used. Environment boss, Cllr Richard Thomas, insisted that the council should use all the powers at its disposal to stop vandals wrecking our community.

In our survey, a massive 97% told us they supported Southwark's policy of issuing fines for environmental crime.

Commenting, Cllr Richard Thomas said:

Councillor Richard Thomas has led the campaign to clean up our area

"When Labour ran the Council, there was NO enforcement activity at all against fly posting, graffiti, street litter or dog fouling. Since the Liberal Democrats won control of the council nearly 4000 fines have been issued for littering alone! In 2002 the council started issuing fines for fly posting - charging offenders for the costs of clearing up after them. This brought in £100,000 in the first year. Now the figure is down to £5,000 as companies have stopped their flyposting. We have ensured that over 8000 cases of environmental crime have been successfully concluded by either threatening action, issuing fines or prosecuting offenders - compared to just 600 in Labour's last 4 years!"

Wardens make a difference

Southwark is now patrolled by the largest team of community wardens in the country. Our survey showed that over 91% support the Lib Dem's introduction and use of wardens.

ID Cards

80% of East Dulwich residents who responded to our survey question would prefer to see £6billion spent on police rather than ID cards! Even ignoring the costs, most people were against ID cards.