Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Police boss promises action over drugs issue at neighbourhood meeting
This evening, Superintendent Chris Jones attended the local community safety partnership (LCSP) meeting at Allison Road Hall to meet Ladder residents about the local drugs issue. Below is a rather hurriedly written update.
Supt Jones is in charge of all neighbourhood teams in Haringey and Enfield. He has been made aware of the increasing drug selling and use issue on the Ladder. Both Councillor Zena Brabazon and Ian Sygrave of the community safety partnership have been in touch with him regularly over the past few months, passing on residents' concerns.
Today Jones offered to come and meet residents face-to-face to hear about the drugs issue and to offer some action.
About thirty residents attended to meeting with the police boss. All had similar tales of dealing and use in the Passage. Many reported that their children were now fearful of walking to school along the passage. One woman who lives at the Wightman end of her Ladder road said that she now catches a cab home from Green Lanes at night for fear of the drug activity.
We also heard about the use being made of people's front gardens both for drug-taking, as well as for less savoury (and rather more smelly) reasons. The issue affects mainly those living near the Passage.
I found it remarkable how familiar people are with who the drug dealers are, where they live and where the centre of operations is. For example, there were several references to the 'dealer with the pony tail'.
Supt Jones freely admitted that the neighbourhood has been failed by the local neighbourhood policing system. Whilst the causes of the failure are complex and, of course, include limited resources, Jones has been able to identify local policing management issues that he feels he can address.
"I promise you I'll resolve it", he said at one point.
Coming from someone else, this may have been less convincing. But I did feel that Jones meant what he said. He made several very specific promises
- From tomorrow (Friday 10th Sept) uniformed police will be on patrol along the Passage at school drop-off and pick-up times.
- Starting next Monday, he will make weekly reports to the local community safety partnership.
- He will produce a 30-day plan for tacking the issue
- He will attend the LCSP meeting in November to take feedback and provide another update on the issue
At the same time, our local neighbourhood policing team has just been doubled from two officers to four.
Jones asked that despite the frustrations reported at the meeting with reporting the drugs issues to the police, that we all continue doing so. He said that this ensures that the severity of the issue is registered so that it can compete with other demands on police resources.
He advised that if we witness something that feels immediately threatening, we should call 999, He said that If the operator tries to tell you its the wrong place to report it, tell them Jones told you to call there.
If it's an update on intelligence on the ongoing issue, he asked that you send an email to the neighbourhood policing team at harringay.snt@met.police.uk. I suggest that you copy it to lcsp@blueyonder.co.uk.
Jones told the meeting that all emails will be logged and people should expect an email response. If this doesn't happen, we can update him in November when he attends the LCSP meeting that month.
Cllr Zena Brabazon told the meeting that she would like to see a Harringay Ladder summit meeting over the issue to co-ordinate the council and police response and bring in people like architects and specialist police officers to introduce 'designing out crime' measures.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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If your aim is to provide intelligence and add to the official record about the issue, then, right now, the email I’ve provided is the way to go. I think something was said about an additional email in the near future. But, in the meantime, I’d report any issues rather than wait. If you have detailed questions, you might try Ian Sygrave.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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Without making work for Ian I think the SNT email you shared is the right one. harringay.snt@met.police.uk
It’s possibly more efficient to send intelligence direct, but it seems part of the problem has been a lack of ownership being taken of information provided by the local SNT team. It seems this may be about to improve however. I asked for Ian to circulate contact details in the relevant LCSP minutes. I think that is what Hugh mentions above.
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Both Ian's email and the SNT one are in the original post. And, yes I agree, intelligence direct, as I said, but, beyond the police, Ian is in the best position to help with questions relating to the issue.
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Permalink Reply by Dups4 on
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We didn’t attend the meeting but would like to extend our thanks to those who did and also to those who have invested their personal time and energy in helping to raise the issues. It was good to see the promises made being put into action today during the school pickup.
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It's almost a shock (of the nicest sort) when officials deliver on their promises. So fingers crossed, Chris Jones will be as good as he appeared to be.
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Permalink Reply by Mavic Starfish on
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Thursday evening approx 18.50, I immediately noticed two policeman outside Turnpike Lane station (Langham Close/ Taxi cab office) , and no dealers. Also a police van at the top of Graham rd, with police talking to some people, not sure if was an arrest. There have been groups of dealers outside the station every weekday evening at around 18.45 - 19.00 for the last 6 weeks as that's the time I cycle through. Great to see that it had an affect, hopefully it's a concerted coordinated effort.
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Click and collect service at Sainsbury's ..retail park .. And I don't mean groceries!!. Some of these characters... usually found lurking around the trolley shelters ... and by the zebra crossing at the back.
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Permalink Reply by George on
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Nice to hear of an improvement from the opposite side of Green Lanes regarding these issues, unfortunately it looks like the result is it's pushed the problem elsewhere, which is totally inevitable. I've just watched 3 of the regular faces of Green Lanes openly dealing and drug taking on a residential door step on my street, just off Green Lanes opposite the Ladder and have also seen an increase in dealing this past week too.
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If it’s over the last week, I don’t think it’ll be related to any change in police activity on this side: that only started on Friday. But the issue of displacement was discussed. We were told that the teams will work together to try and avoid this.
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Yep it's been an issue on our side of Green Lanes for the 6 years I've lived here. It's over the past 5 days I've noticed a lot of activity, so I do realise it can't all be directly attributed to the increased patrols on the ladder. This incident today of seeing a group of men loitering and openly smoking/taking crack (or something like that) in a neighbour's garden by their front door was a first for me though, not saying it hasn't happened before though as I've actually found the drug taking paraphernalia on my doorstep in the morning once before! To see it in action in broad daylight was quite shocking, I would not want to be the person who opens their front door onto that scene. Anyhow good to know displacement was discussed in the meeting.
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