The motion was moved by Councillor Jeff Hanna and seconded by Councillor Edith Macauley

Councillors Hamish Badenoch and Peter Southgate also spoke on this item

A roll-call was called on the substantive motion.

Voting in Favour:

Councillors: Stephen Alambritis, Mark Allison, Stan Anderson, Laxmi Attawar, Tobin Byers, David Chung, Caroline Cooper-Marbiah, Pauline Cowper, Mary Curtin, John Dehaney, Nick Draper, Edward Foley, Brenda Fraser, Fidelis Gadzama, Ross Garrod, Jeff Hanna, Joan Henry, Mary-Jane Jeanes, Abigail Jones, Philip Jones, Andrew Judge, Sally Kenny, Linda Kirby, Edith Macauley, Russell Makin, Maxi Martin, Peter McCabe, Ian Munn, Katy Neep, Dennis Pearce, John Sargeant, Judy Saunders, Marsie Skeete, Peter Southgate, Geraldine Stanford, Imran Uddin, Gregory Udeh, Peter Walker and Martin Whelton. (39)

Voting Against:

Councillors: Hamish Badenoch, John Bowcott, Michael Bull, Adam Bush, Stephen Crowe, David Dean, Suzanne Grocott, Daniel Holden, James Holmes, Janice Howard, Abdul Latif, Najeeb Latif, Brian Lewis-Lavender, Gilli Lewis-Lavender, Oonagh Moulton, David Simpson, Linda Taylor, Jill West, and David Williams. (19)

Not Voting:

Councillor: Agatha Mary Akyigyina. (1)

The Mayor declared the motion to be carried.

RESOLVED

That the Council notes that whilst levels of crime in Merton are the third lowest in London, and fear of crime is lower than the London average, nevertheless there are areas of the borough where concern about crime is substantially higher than average, and 46% of our young people include crime amongst their top three concerns, and believes that these concerns can be better addressed.

That the Council notes that although current police deployment in Merton is based on three sectors, based around Wimbledon, Morden and Mitcham, each with the same number of wards and the same number of Local Police Team officers, statistics show some 42% of crime in Merton to occur within the Mitcham sector, including violent crime, recent stabbings, and crime related to drug dealing, all of which causes an increased degree of fear of crime amongst residents living in these wards, and even within sectors there are particular areas and times when crime is typically higher than the norm, such as Wimbledon town centre in the evening and night-time. We recognise the need for increased policing of those areas at those times.

The Council is conscious that the vast majority of residents in Mitcham and of Wimbledon are responsible, law abiding citizens, as is true across the borough, believes that all our residents are entitled to a level of policing that responds to the incidence and seriousness of crime in their immediate neighbourhood, and confirms that this should be provided by the Mayor of London, without subsidy from council tax payers from an increasing hard-pressed council budget.

The Council was pleased to host the ‘meet the public’ session with the Metropolitan Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe on Monday 10 November in this council chamber, and noted

a.   his confirmation that individual Borough Commanders are not required to deploy officers evenly across sectors, but are free to deploy their officers across and within sectors in accordance with the needs of each of those sectors, and also

b.   his recognition that in moving away from the Safer Neighbour Team model of deployment, the Metropolitan Police had gone further than was wise, to the detriment of effective community intelligence gathering, and his acknowledgement that current Ward (Home Beat) teams might need to be increased in order to improve this.

The Council accordingly calls on Merton’s Borough Commander, Chief Superintendent Stuart MacLeod, to review the deployment of his officers across the Borough,

i.      retaining the Ward (Home Beat) officers currently attached to each ward,

ii.      increasing the number of Ward (Home Beat) officers in wards most affected by crime to provide more routine patrols, improved levels of trust, increased community intelligence, and

iii.     sharing the remaining Local Policing officers between sectors, and within those sectors, on the basis of need, as evidenced by recent crime statistics.

The Council also requests Ch. Supt. MacLeod to provide the Overview and Scrutiny Commission when he next attends with a breakdown of the revised deployment of Local Policing officers, setting out the rational by which that deployment has been determined.