No, sarge!

Published: August 11, 2011

MOST would agree Safer Neighbourhoods Teams policing has been a considerable success.

Now Camden has lost four of its SNT sergeants, which means eight of our 18 wards now share their sergeants. We find Camden having, ludicrously, to share with Belsize and my own Cantelowes ward sharing with Kentish Town, while leafy, calm, backwater Highgate is left with its own dedicated sergeant.

Our sergeants will become more desk-bound and inevitably won’t know their area as well.  This is a disaster and the end of Safer Neighbour­hoods policing. It is demoralising experienced officers. National police cuts require the saving of 300 sergeants across London over the next 18 months or so. We may yet see a rapid U-turn on this but on current form we’ve only seen the first half of the exercise, with probably four more sergeants to go after the Olympics (and the mayoral elections!).

It does not have to be this way. Yes, the budget requires the reduction of numbers of sergeants in the Met, but they don’t all have to be from the SNTs. There are other teams like CID and anti-terrorism anticipating no cuts at all. 

The buck stops with Boris. He could take a different decision on where cuts are made.
Cllr Paul Braithwaite
Lib Dem, Cantelowes ward