Covent Garden London
The heart of London's West End
Police Report
Once again, the overriding problem in Covent Garden is a lack of visible policing, resulting in a visible increase in drug users and dealers. When we lobbied for the money for Project Lilac, I was very excited and certainly felt confident that there would be a marked improvement.
Yes, within the immediate area there no doubt was an improvement, but the two disturbing aspects that were deeply unwelcome was the inevitable and devastating displacement to areas previously not known for their drug abuse and, secondly, this established an even wider area for use and abuse, way beyond the original project boundaries that Lilac was called in to deal with. Areas known to have little or no policing, which have come to light as a result and now fast becoming well established.
One of the other problems with Lilac was what appeared to be its emphasis on the users and their possible treatments, rather than the impact on the community.
In a recent letter to one of our local newspapers it was pointed out that there has been a monopoly in the debate and decision making process concerning services for and treatment of drug addicts. It would appear that the 'health professionals', service providers and 'drug action team' representatives have been very focused on part of the overall issue, mainly in the form of lobbying for and on behalf of registered addicts, and that the people most directly affected by their decisions, their lobbying, their client addicts and their steering groups - our local community - have had very little recognition or sympathy.
The local community is often being made to feel bad about commenting on the ever growing band of addicts, that to complain is negative and that we should be grateful we have somewhere to live, etc. Certainly we should, and most of us are, but it is very dispiriting when you try hard to get your act together, provide for yourself and try and maintain a certain standard to be accused, in so many words, of being selfish, hardhearted, etc for not embracing a needle exchange, for example.
Throughout the entire operation we felt the Police did a very good job, but too many others jumped on the bandwagon, all so-called experts. So, the result was that a situation developed of 'them and us' and the people who lobbied in the first place for the funding were down the ladder of these elite, highly qualified expert experts, who do, after all, know best.
Private policing is understandably not very acceptable. After all, we pay through our business and private rates and taxes, and that should be sufficient. But when a grave shortage of Police makes it a good area for all conceivable unlicensed trading, as in James Street, something has to be done. You'll read more about this in Insp Wright's Police Report.
Although the decrease in crime was not enormous, it most certainly disrupted the very lucrative unlicensed street traders, and that is to be welcomed. That it was out of control in the first place was due to two factors, namely the cleaning up of Leicester Square (and therefore the displacement to James Street) and the reduction in the number of local Police officers. The sponsored policing trial was impressive.
We are delighted that Holborn Police Station has finally re-opened. As always,, we need to appreciate our Police service and recognise that they are doing an increasingly dangerous job against increasingly bad odds. We just wish there were more of them!
Jo Weir
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