invisible and ineffective wardens

My Labour colleague Cllr Sam Townend has written a letter to the South London Press, which has been printed today.

Here it is:

I WRITE in support of the abolition of the largely useless wardens scheme in Lambeth - brought in by the Lib Dem/Tories - and the Labour administration's proposed replacement with additional police community support officers.

As a new Labour councillor in a ward that was previously held by the Lib Dems (Kennington and Vauxhall), my ward has had the supposed benefit of six wardens for 18 months or so. Despite canvassing thousands of doors and going to large numbers of community meetings over the same period, neither my two ward councillor colleagues nor I have ever come across any of the six supposedly employed in my patch, nor have any residents raised any matter about them with me, other than to say that they never see them. In my area, wardens have been invisible and ineffective.

More police support officers out on the beat will in contrast make a real difference in terms of confidence of local people in their safety on the streets, and will be effective because they report to and are managed by professionals who know what they are doing. They will be accountable because their work is overseen by the safer neighbourhoods group, made up only of local residents, not by some faceless bureaucrat in the town hall (which is the way the Lib Dems always seem to want to run things). They will also importantly have powers - unlike the wardens - which are essential for their effectiveness.

I wish the Lib Dem spokesman for crime would just shut up and compare and contrast the obvious effectiveness of the proposed police-managed officers than the limp wardens scheme which it replaces.
Cllr Sam Townend, Labour Prince's ward, Lambeth council

liberating pickled onions

Out today with enthusiastic Labour members to deliver the 2007 Streatham South Labour calendar. Every home should have one, and in Streatham South, every home will have one before the first chime of the New Year.

It’s always good exercise for the week between Christmas and New Year, and we’re confident we will get them all delivered.
It can become quite mechanical, shoving calendars in letter box after letter box, but now and again someone I know walks past and stops for a chat, or someone follows me from a few doors back to raise a problem, prompted by the calendar, which also has our surgery times on it.

My favourite encounter of the day was with an old lady in Streatham Vale who flung open her front door and shoved a large jar of pickled onions in my hand.

“Ooh, are you strong?” she asked, peering at me over her glasses.

“I, um, get by,” I replied.

“Can you open it, dear? It’s stuck fast. I’ve tried standing it in boiling water, the lot. Have a go, do, dear.”

A younger woman walked up behind the old lady.

“Come on, councillor, show us what you’re made of,” she said.

Happily, the lid twisted easily, the pickled onions were liberated and I handed the jar back to the beaming old lady, together with a calendar.

“Just goes to show,” smiled the other woman, a neighbour, “councillors do have their uses.”

police siege

I left home for about fifteen minutes to get a bottle of bleach and a packet of screws (I really know how to celebrate Boxing Day) and when I was walking back up the High Road, I saw that the flats where I live – Streatham Court – had been cordoned off by police.

At the back of Streatham Court there is another block called Manor Court, which was the focus of a big police operation over several hours. Walking up Leigham Avenue, I could see police vans in numbers, officers with guns, riot shields and dogs.
Having a word with one of the officers across the tapes, it seems that a man with a knife was in the process of being apprehended after a number of alarming incidents in Streatham earlier in the day.

Eventually the police moved in and captured the man in his flat. He was taken away. I have to say, I was impressed not only by the scale of the operation, but also the efficiency with which it was managed. Though I and a number of other residents had to remain outside the cordon, we were allowed back to our homes as soon as it was safe.

Have yourself a very Streatham Christmas

I have just returned from the candlelit service at St Leonard’s Church in Streatham.

The cards are all delivered. The lights and decorations are all finally up. The Olympian goose from the butcher in Streatham Vale is waiting in the fridge for the big day. Friends will be arriving for breakfast, and staying through the day.

Christmas is finally upon us in Streatham, and I would like to take this opportunity of wishing you a very happy and restful one.

Lib Dems: wedded to weak wardens

It’s a tragedy that the warden scheme in Lambeth was set up by a soft-on-crime Lib Dem council. It could have been so much better, but now it is just too late.

I like the idea of wardens, where they are affordable, properly tasked and equipped with the latest enforced powers. And where they have a discernible effect on crime levels.

But in Lambeth, wardens were deliberately given no enforcement powers, no real uniform and more or less left to their own devices to “engage” with the community. Labour has inherited an expensive white elephant, which had the Lib Dems won back in May, would have been rolled out at ever greater expense and no tangible crime-fighting benefit.

Rather than throw good money after bad, Labour will be ceasing the warden schemes and investing in extra PCSOs, with all the enforcement powers they need for the challenge of patrolling Lambeth.

The Lib Dems are wedded to their weak wardens, and seemingly opposed to extra police. I find myself having a bit of a barney in the local press with Cllr Julian Heather, the bête orange of the Streatham Lib Dems.

This is a letter he dashed off to the South London Press last week expressing anger at the decision we are set to make a Cabinet meeting in January to cease the council warden scheme and spend the money on extra policing instead. Bear in mind that crime and the fear of crime are residents’ number one concerns in this borough.

“Our wardens are invaluable”
Dec 18 2006

LAMBETH Labour's crime spokesman, Councillor Mark Bennett, states crime wardens are a waste of time and money ("Weak and powerless wardens may be scrapped", South London Press, December 12).

He also criticises our wardens for limited powers - established by his own Labour Government. In Streatham, Labour has announced plans to slash the successful St Leonards street wardens to just two, although rumours persist that it wants to scrap warden schemes altogether.

Yet, at a recent crime working party, which Cllr Bennett did not attend, a senior police officer commended our "very good wardens scheme" and added that the police would not be able to cope without them. He further praised the Streatham wardens for their invaluable work with local youth and expressed concern that the Streatham and Norwood police areas had been underfunded for years.

This seems to underscore the original intention of the wardens as eyes and ears, relaying valuable intelligence to police. They are also a visible presence and do a lot of community support work. Labour would do well to stop politicising crime prevention measures with tricky motions to council and tough talk and start listening to residents and police when they say that crime wardens play a positive and supportive role in our communities.

Cllr Julian Heather, Lib Dem member, Streatham Wells ward

Here is my reply.

“No need for wardens ... “
Dec 22 2006

COUNCILLOR Julian Heather's hatred of Labour shows no sign of abating (Letters, December 15).

Nor must it - he embodies the ghastly mess the Lib Dems made of running Lambeth council, including the expensive £3million botch they made of council warden schemes.

Cllr Heather criticises my absence at a recent meeting of the Streatham crime working group. It regularly clashes with the borough-wide community police consultative group, where I represent Lambeth council, and until that clash is resolved I am unable to attend. This month, I was at a community policing meeting in Cllr Heather's ward, which neither he nor his two Lib Dem ward colleagues attended. I then attended an important update for the Streatham Hub stakeholders, where again Lib Dem councillors were entirely absent. So I will accept no lectures from Cllr Heather.

I must affirm that wardens are "a waste of time and money" - as they are currently operating. The safety of Lambeth residents is paramount, and to deploy millions of pounds on schemes that are a nice idea but show little crime-fighting benefit is not a serious or effective use of public money.

The Lib Dems, who voted against Labour's antisocial behaviour legislation, typically chose to withhold Labour's tough new enforcement powers from wardens. Nor were they criminal record-checked to the correct standard to enable police to share information. Their role in community engagement has been welcomed, but every football tournament, tea party or seaside outing takes them off the streets they should be patrolling.

There are better ways to provide patrolling services, and Labour will shortly be making a decision on a stronger way forward. We will bear Cllr Heather's outburst in mind.

Cllr Mark Bennett Cabinet member for community safety, Lambeth council

And here is a letter from a resident who has decided to enter the fray, and who happily seems to agree with me.

RESIDENTS much prefer the extra police for every neighbour-hood provided by the Mayor of London to patrol our streets than paying for ridiculous Lambeth wardens who were hardly ever seen. Liberal Democrat councillor Julian Heather is misguided to defend the wardens, whom his council recruited, as all the evidence shows the police have a better chance of deterring crime.

The council wardens stopped no one because they were poorly trained and ill-equipped. They never worked times of day when antisocial behaviour was at its height. And they failed to connect with police command.

No wonder these won't be missed. The general public has greater confidence in a squad of recognisable police officers who have the power of arrest.

Philip Bray-Wilson, Park Hill Clapham

Lib Dems and Tories threaten libraries

Just as some dogs have an irrational hatred of cyclists and joggers, there must be something about opposition parties and libraries. The Liberals want to bulldoze Streatham Library and now the Tories want to starve Upper Norwood Library of resources.

Upper Norwood Library is run jointly by Croydon and Lambeth councillors. The decision-making committee is made up of 2 Labour (Lambeth) and 6 Tories (Lambeth and Croydon).

The Croydon Tories don't want to fork out £60k, as Labour Lambeth has done, to balance the budget. Consequently staff will have to be made redundant. Recently Lambeth's Tories voted with their Croydon cronies for the redundancies.

My Labour colleague, Cllr David Malone, abstained, arguing rightly that Lambeth's Tories should be putting pressure on their Tory friends in Croydon to fork out for this vital community resource.

But did they? No. They voted for cuts. For all their talk about standing up for amenities in Norwood, when push comes to shove, they voted to cut an amenity. Not that push comes to shove much between Tories – think back-scratching, back-slapping and a bit of back-sliding.

Shame on them. And most shame on the Chair of the Norwood Area Committee, who bangs on about the neglect of Norwood and democratic deficits and a whole load of other haughty hogwash. He sat with his Croydon friends and voted against the interests of Norwood.

Now that they have protests on their hands (one took place today I gather), it will be interesting to see how long the Lambeth Tories can hold the Croydon line before they flip-flop and try to blame Labour for what is a purely Tory cut.

IDS and the pink vote

It comes as no surprise to learn that former Tory leader and born-again social justice crusader Iain Duncan Smith has a problem with LGBT people.

The Independent diary tells us today that a former staffer recalls ‘the pink vote’ was a delicate subject in the quiet man’s office:

“He used to get quite ratty. We once asked him to sign a letter supporting a Gay Pride event in Manchester. He lost his temper, screwed up the letter and threw it against his office wall. Another time we were discussing gay rights in a service station. He got so irate and thumped his fist against the table, catapulting a plate of food into someone’s lap. I don’t know why he got so touchy. Maybe it was due to his army days.”

This from a man who was telling us the other day, in the context of Conservative family policy:

“I don't think the gay stuff is anything to do with this because it's irrelevant,” and that same-sex couples do not "register on the Richter scale of how to bring up children."

So, if you thought the Tories they are a-changing, think again. They ain’t.

Duncan Smith visited Brixton recently – it was a no media event, though not, I suspect, by choice.