The Hammersmith Broadway police team was reduced by a quarter after the Council cut funding when their plans hit a financial crisis. The Council has now written to Coca-Cola and other local businesses to seek help with funding the local police teams.However, the Police and local Council have agreed to “temporarily” place four community support officers into the Hammersmith Broadway Police Team as a response to our campaign over the last few months.
The decision to supply the extra community support officers was only made after an Evening Standard reporter called senior police officers to ask about the police cut having seen one of our leaflets at John Stenton’s butchers in Aldensley Road. We are grateful to John (and the many other local businesses) for handing out the leaflets from his shop. However, we do not believe that temporary community support officers are a sufficient response and we are continuing to press the Conservative Administration to have police numbers permanently restored.
Labour had provided over £1million of extra police funding, ensuring that all sixteen wards in the borough were given local ward police teams by May 2006. This resulted in the borough experiencing the biggest falls in crime in London up until May 2006. We wanted to build on this initial success and have offered to work with the new Conservative Administration to ensure that the five wards with the highest crime are given 24/7 Police Task Squads. This would have seen Hammersmith gain significant numbers of extra police as it has the highest rates of crime in the borough. However, Conservative councillors voted our plans down, going for a much smaller scheme only covering Shepherds Bush Green and Fulham Broadway wards.
With residents’ support we can force the Council to provide the funding for Hammersmith Broadway. We are grateful to all those that have contacted us and we will continue to fight to get the policing people were promised.
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