Motor Vehicle Crime: Update

When the Maida Vale Safer Neighbourhoods police team asked local residents last year for their major priorities to tackle crime, it was theft and vandalism against cars which came the highest on their list. It is something which we both hear about and see the consequences of (smashed glass on the pavement) too often.

The police team have provided us with an update on their latest efforts to tackle the problem:

• intelligence continues to be gathered against 13 identified regular offenders who are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime in our local area (with a majority of these currently in prison/on remand)
• issues continued to be regularly discussed at the local Civicwatch briefing sessions, bringing together the police team, the council, City of Westminster College, CityWest Homes and others
• decoy operations have been run in our streets, resulting in one arrest

The majority of crimes against vehicles are speculative, often because criminals think they can get lucky. The best way to reduce the chances of damage is to remove all valuable from sight and to remove the tell-tale signs of any valuables (such as the marks left on the windowscreen from TomTom holders).

Our local Safer Neighbourhoods team are based in Harrow Road. Contact details can be found to the right.

Please do get in touch if you would like to discuss this any further. We've been working closely, for example, with residents in Delaware Road to reduce car crime in the last month or so, and we'd be very happy to help in any way we can.

Alastair