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| Mark Clarke on patrol with a local Tooting PC |
Crime is a major issue of concern in Wandsworth. There have been several murders recently and there are many serious issues, such as gang membership, gun crime and drug dealing which affect everyone.
Mark saw for himself what an exceptionally good job the local Police do when he went out on the beat with them. But he also saw how overstretched they are. In fact, most of the time there are no beat police on duty at all in Tooting.
Last year, the borough's most senior police officer told councillors that Wandsworth had "not had its fair share of police officers for some time". The reality of this is that Wandsworth has 80 fewer police officers than ten years ago. Tooting’s Labour MP is on record saying he supports this arrangement - and has suggested that temporarily borrowing officers from other boroughs is a good enough solution.
On average Tooting police station has around 10 police officers and 5 PCSOs on duty - serving 30,000 residents. This is absurdly low . We clearly need more officers locally. For example, this lack of resources means that burglaries are only investigated if they involve a vulnerable person, are a first time offence or there is particularly good intelligence. This means that burglary victims are often left to report the crime via a phone message, only to be left a message with an interim crime reference number in return!