A great idea worth copying in Putney

One of the reasons Labour created Safer Neighbourhood Police teams a few years ago was because Londoners so lamented the gradual loss, over years, of bobbies on the beat: a police officer who everyone knew and respected.

In Bexley, their Safer Neighbourhood team have decided to take the next step towards restoring that bobby-on-the-beat link by setting themselves a challenging target of calling on every home in the borough over the next year or so.

I'd like to see the same thing done here in Putney, Roehampton and Southfields. I've written before about how most areas see their police teams regularly but some feel they aren't getting the attention they deserve. This is a way to tackle that, to build links and restore the link we lost with the police some time in the seventies and eighties.

Shouldn't the police be tackling crime rather than chatting to residents? There's something to that, but my view is that the police will achieve more in the medium and long term by building those links; when people can go up to a police officer they know and talk to him or her in confidence. Because the key to cracking crime is having the local network that police can go to and trust - and who in turn can trust their police.

I'd like Putney, Roehampton and Southfields police to take up the Bexley idea and run with it. They don't need a timetable; just set themselves the objective and get on with it.

And, incidentally, it's not exactly a terrible idea for local representatives: councillors and MPs - to do the same, and set themselves a target of calling on every household in their area at least once during their term of office.