Croydon is among the 20 police stations in London listed to stay open, in controversial closure plans released yesterday by the Metropolitan Police.
Sutton, Kingston and Brixton police front counters will also be kept open under the plans.
But Wimbledon, Mitcham, Lavender Hill in Battersea and Twickenham are on the list of 18 to shut.
The Met plans to reduce the number of front counters where the public can speak to officers from 37 to 20, and cut the number of them open 24 hours a day to just eight, as the force grapples with making £260million of “savings” this financial year. It says 1,700 officer and staff jobs will also be cut.
Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist told the London Assembly that the police station closures would save £7million a year but were “difficult choices”.
Open for business: Croydon is one of the 20 London police stations set to remain in service
The plan breaks a pledge from Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan and the Met to have a counter staffed 24/7 in all London’s 32 boroughs.
That commitment formed part of the police’s “A New Met for London” strategy, aimed at delivering “more trust, less crime and high standards”.
The force says that in making its cuts, it is prioritising neighbourhood policing, response policing and public protection.
Chris Philp, the Conservative MP for Croydon South and the Tories’ shadow Home Secretary, tweeted “The police will now be less accessible and Londoners even less safe.”
Philp suffers from troubling amnesia about the years 2010 to 2024, which sees him, a former policing minister in a government that took 20,000 police officers off the nation’s streets, forget that the Met first began closing its front counters and selling off police station properties in 2013, when then Mayor Boris Johnson closed 98 of them – including four in Croydon. London had previously had nearly 140 police counters.
Amnesia: Croydon South MP Chris Philp appears to have forgotten the stations closed by the Tories
In the responses to the plans, concerns have been expressed that those on bail will have to travel miles to report as part of conditions, increasing the risk that defendants might abscond.
Kingston police station has been listed to remain open, in a move to avoid the nearest 24-hour counter to Richmond being Acton, Sutton or Lambeth.
Paula Dodds, the chair of the Met Police Federation, said: “If we close police station front counters the public can’t have access to us when they need it most.
“We can’t hide behind technology because not everyone has access to technology to call the police or go online to report a crime – they want that personal interaction. The public are going to have to go further to get access to a police station if they need it out of hours.”
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police said: “Just 5% of crimes were reported using front counters last year, with only 1% of these being made during the night.
“At the busiest front counter in London, on average 15 crimes are reported a day – less than one an hour – and in the least busy, only 2.5 crimes are reported a day.
“Londoners tell us they want to see more officers on our streets.
“The decision to reduce and close some front counters will save £7million and 3,752 hours of police officer time per month, allowing us to focus resources relentlessly on tackling crime and putting more officers into neighbourhoods across London.”
A period of detailed design work and engagement is underway before final decisions are made later this year.
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It’s such fun reporting crime to the local Popo.
The classics they come out with.
“Can’t fingerprint that, mate”. Funny …Smooth, non-porous surfaces like glass, polished metal and varnished wood are generally the best for capturing fingerprints according to Wikipedia.
Earlier this year I reported a vandalised tap to the local bobby via his email. Heard nothing. I expect he’s too busy having a cuppa with a councillor. Well, I suppose chocolate teapots go in pairs.
I reported it officially and uploaded the CCTV with full face shots via the Met website after the previous year spending weeks figuring out how to install cameras in areas with no electricity using solar panels and what kind of equipment I need to make the wireless signals strong enough to pick up on the router.
I got the enthusiastic response “What do you expect us to do?” Well, nicking villains would be nice.
And what do you get after that? Dead air.
Okay, maybe full face shots … that’s not enough to catch someone if they don’t have a record but you get literally no feedback … Unless you constantly chase.
It’s like dealing with the customer service department of BHS in the months before they went bust. But without the enthusiasm.
Still, I can’t say I don’t see bobbies on the beat because they’re often outside the shop in the summer enjoying an ice-cream on the benches which I’m sure terrifies the vandals and burglars.
Of course, they probably think that by handing out crime numbers they’re doing us a favour but most of these low level crimes fall below the £500 excess on the block insurance so aren’t worth claiming on so instead they remain a constant low level fiscal drag on the leaseholders via their service charges.
Also the police are obsessed with the value of the theft. I told them it’s not the value that’s the issue it’s the labour cost of calling the plumber out twice. It makes you wonder if you get better service if it’s a £5,000 Rolex. I suspect not but…
Now no one’s expecting Poirot to be called in to solve the mystery of the missing tap where we know exactly who did it by sight, but I personally have never experienced the police solving a crime I’ve been the victim of in the past 25 years.
You’d think they’d solve one sometimes just as a sort of statistical accident.
I suspect most people don’t report at all because they know they’ll be assiduously ignored. I know I don’t.
So I’m sure removing front desks from police stations will be a very successful strategy in reducing the crime figures. Think you were talking to a brick wall before? You really are now.
This might serve as a useful reminder:
https://insidecroydon.com/2024/06/26/cronxwatch-returns-asking-where-are-croydons-police/
Three break ins of a commercial property, all captured on CCTV. Croydon police never even bothered to show up.
As Netanyahu announces his plan to liquidate the Gaza ghetto, thanks to Yvette Cooper, the police are busy tackling real criminals – pensioners protesting about the extermination of Palestinians and the erasure of Palestine.
Meanwhile the Met continue to sit on a dossier showing that British citizens have been committing war crimes while serving in the Israel Defense Forces. Shamima Begum, a child in law, was deprived of her citizenship for a lot less