Oval / Kennington door knocking scam

I think it's worth linking to an item from the Kennington Association who have been contacted by the Vassall Safer Neighbourhood team, to warn people of a scam being attempted around the Oval area.

If youths come knocking at your door, requesting money to support a sports club, ask them for ID and do not give them any money. If you can contact the local police, they will come and check to see whether the group is authorised (it looks unlikely).

See the Kennington News blog for further info.

SE11 Monthly Crime Update: July 2008

I just noticed that the July 2008 stats are out for the Metropolitan Police Crime Map. The Police have started to compare the different levels of crime in each different Borough when you click in detail on the map. However, I'm turning it into a crude chart format so we can watch Lambeth in-depth over the next few months.

See my previous post for reasons as to why these stats. are not definitive.

Comparison:

Lambeth crime levels (Average - June 08, Average - July 08)
Southwark crime levels (High - June 08, Above Average - July 08)
Westminster crime levels (High - June 08, High - July 08)

So, overall, things have improved somewhat in Southwark, and Lambeth remains the same. Now, breaking Lambeth down into its boroughs, we find as follows:

(3 = Average, 4 = Above Average)

Jul08 Jun08
3........3 = Bishops
3........3 = Brixton Hill
3........3 = Clapham Common
3........3 = Clapham Town
3........4 = Cold Harbour
3........4 = Ferndale
3........3 = Gipsy Hill
3........3 = Herne Hill
3........3 = Knight's Hill
3........3 = Larkhall
4........4 = Oval Ward
4........3 = Princes
3........4 = St Leonards
3........3 = Stockwell
3........3 = Streatham Hill
3........3 = Streatham South
3........3 = Streatham Wells
3........3 = Thornton
3........4 = Thurlow Park
3........3 = Tulse Hill
3........3 = Vassall Ward

Oval Ward has high crime for 2 months running and in Princes Ward, crime has risen to the "high crime" bracket. However, other than that, crime has broadly either stayed the same or improved throughout Lambeth and every borough is reporting "average" crime. Furthur investigation reveals that 31 crimes were reported in Princes in June, but in July, this went up to 41!

Crime in SE11, Lambeth, Southwark and surrounds

On some of my previous posts, I've been scathing about people who consider South London to be dangerous, full of crime and not worthy of their attention. I've been interested for some time about how much crime is really committed in the different parts of London, and what type of crime etc. I'm most interested in SE11, but being so close to SE1, SE17, SW8 and SW9, it seems that a wider view ought to be taken. We can hardly stop people postcode hopping to commit crime!

Crime statistics are massively flawed for (at least) the three following reasons:

1. Crime stats. depend upon people reporting crime. I know lots of people who are the victims of petty theft who wouldn't report their crime if they didn't think that there was anything the police could do.

2. The police, periodically, change the definition of of what constitutes a crime "bracket" for a particular crime. So if one bracket goes up too much eg. "violent crime", they'll remove car crime from the bunch and place it in a different bracket. This makes long term study of crime very difficult because it's hard to tell where the boundaries have moved from and to.

3. Periodically, the area boundaries for measurement of crime are changed. I'm not sure whether this is so much of a problem as changing definitions, but it no doubt factors.

Anyhow, having said that, I found that the Metropolitan police (with some cleverish google mapping) have plotted a crime map of London (excluding the City). The "crimes" it counts are burglary, robbery and vehicle crime. The map uses colour to display highest crime areas in orange and red, and average in yellow. One can then break the areas down furthur and see the crime in particular wards.

Overall, Lambeth has a yellow shading (average crime), but Southwark has a red shading (high crime) for June 2008. I checked the figures, which state 850 crimes in June 2008 in Southwark, and 739 in Lambeth. It seemed to me then that the margin of difference between the brackets was small. However, I've played around a little more and it seems that the average numbers are calculated on the size of the borough in question. Westminster had fewer crimes committed than Lambeth, but since it's smaller, it records "above average" crime for London. The site is only in "Beta/testing" mode at the moment and I've asked for feedback as to more detail on the crime for future versions....

Anyhow, looking at Lambeth overall, there are (as is predictable) pockets of parts of Lambeth with more crime than others for June 08, but the good news first:

Average Crime compared with the rest of London: Bishops Ward, Princes Ward, Vassall Ward, Stockwell Ward, Larkhall Ward, Clapham Town Ward, Clapham Common Ward, Brixton Hill, Herne Hill, Thornton Ward, Tulse Hill Ward, Streatham Hill Ward, Streatham South, Streatham Wells, Gipsy Hill, Knight's Hill,

The bad news (but note that Lambeth has no wards with "high" crime:
Above Average Crime compared with the rest of London: Oval Ward, Ferndale Ward, Cold Harbour Ward, Thurlow Park Ward and St Leonards Ward.

Lambeth is statistically safer (but remember that this is an odd figure because of the different ward sizes) than both Southwark and Westminster.

SE11 has average crime levels for June 2008 (much of the area is in Princes Ward so that seems correct), the small Oval Ward subsection of SE11 also has average crime levels. The west of SE11 (a small subsection of Princes ward) has above average crime, but it's not clear how much of that might stem from the Albert Embankment.

However, the borders of SE11 are not so good. At the south and east side, SE11 is surrounded by 3 pockets of "above average" crime and 1 pocket of "high" crime (I suspect that that is due to Vauxhall Station and its unpleasant surrounds). Directly north of SE11 near Elephant, there is a pocket of "above average" crime as well.

As I said above, I'm hoping that the Metropolitan Police Crime Map will be developed over the next few months so that it will be possible to compare different periods of time and break down the type of crime in any area. I'll report back as soon as they release the figures for July 2008, so we can just see whether it was a quiet month, of whether Lambeth might really be declared to be a place of only "average" crime.

New SE11 related blogs and a look at the political wards

I've resisted adding SE11 councillor blogs to the list until recently because I do not support any particular political party. However, I today discovered two blogs both written by different parties, so I do not appear partisan and since they both cover the area, it seems a shame not to link to them. They are as follows:

1. Oval News - by 3 lib dem councillors in the Oval Ward

2. SE11 Action team - by 3 labour councillors (and some of their supporters) in the Princes Ward

That made me wonder about the rest of the Lambeth political wards, and whether they are represented. (SE11 is largely spread across the Borough of Lambeth, but there are a few bits at the north end that come under Southwark's control). There's a nice handy map of the Lambeth Wards on the Lambeth Council website.

As you can see, the ones that are relevant to SE11 and surrounds are:

1. Princes Ward - This is really the northern part of SE11. It goes up as far as the southern half of Brook Drive, runs down the middle of Kennington Park Road and does not go any furthur south than Kennington Lane. The map also indicates that it covers half of the river Thames! [Labour - as of July 2008]

2. Oval Ward - This is a major constituent part of SE11 and also covers quite a lot of SW8. It includes the whole of Kennington Park, Oval cricket ground (which is its centre) and Vauxhall Park. It goes south as far as Dorset Road and Thorne Road, east to cover a small portion of Brixton Road, and in the north, it runs down the middle of Kennington Lane. [Lib-Dem - as of July 2008]

3. Bishop's Ward - There is a very tiny part of the north east corner of SE11 that is covered by Bishop's Ward. The northern part of Old Paradise Street, the northern part of Fitzalan Street, the whole of Walnut Tree Walk and a very small segment of Kennington Road all fall into this ward. I think, however, that my own postcode map boundaries are a little hazy around here, because SE1 creeps into some of the streets around here. [Lib Dem - as of July 2008]

4. Vassall Ward - This is not strictly a part of SE11, but it's very close to Oval, and covers the area south-east of SE11. For our purposes, it goes down the middle of Camberwell New Road in the north, and Clapham Road on the west. [Labour / Lib Dem Split as of July 2008]

5. Stockwell Ward - Again, this also does not cover SE11, but is situated to the south west of SE11. [Labour as of July 2008]

The political parties of the councillors and the councillor details are all condensed on very helpful Lambeth Council page here.