King George's Park anti-social behaviour and July crime stats

Earlier this month I was contacted by residents of Argento Tower, the new high-rise block on Mapleton Road in Wandsworth which overlooks King George's Park (and most of south London).

They've experienced problems with groups of youths hanging around outside the block by the entrance to the park and in the children's play area, generally being rowdy but also intimidating residents and causing vandalism.

This case has exposed a flaw with current Safer Neighbourhood Policing policy in Wandsworth, because the disruption typically occurs in the early hours: 3-5am when the SNT teams don't work except in exceptional one-offs. Similarly, the council's Parks Constabulary don't patrol that late into the night.

So without SNTs and Parks Police patrolling the area, who is there to keep residents safe? Of course, the answer to an extent is that non-SNT police will be on duty and have been asked to keep an eye on this part of the constituency, but police numbers at night are always, rightly, much lower and so tackling a long-standing problem is not so easy.

I'll keep working with the residents of Argento Tower, the Parks Constabulary and the Southfields Safer Neighbourhood team until this problem is sorted out.

July's crime stats are above: there was a very small uptick in crime in these figures, mainly due to a spike in drugs offences following a police crackdown, and in theft and handling offences in the three big problem wards for these sorts of crimes: Roehampton, Southfields and Thamesfield.

But no sign of the "big increase" in burglaries Putney's Conservative MP complained about last month. Good news.