Met prioritises neighbourhood policing to tackle crime in London hotspots

The Metropolitan Police is ruthlessly prioritising resources and putting more officers on the beat in the busiest parts of London – including the West End - to focus on core policing priorities, protect the public, and tackle areas with high crime.

Despite the Met getting smaller, it is applying more resources and smarter tactics to tackle the biggest priorities.

Up to 80 more officers will join the dedicated West End team to bear down on crimes which Londoners care about the most – including antisocial behaviour, violence against women and girls, shoplifting and phone robbery – as part of the Met’s focus on neighbourhood policing.

The intensified action is part of ongoing work by the Met and Mayor of London to boost local neighbourhood teams, enhance partnership working and put high visibility policing at the heart of fighting crime and rebuilding trust.

The West End will see its policing team grow by over 50 per cent so they can relentlessly target prolific offenders as well as being visible and approachable to protect the public and deter criminals.

Six town centre teams will also be expanded or newly created with 90 additional officers in areas with the highest volumes of thefts and robberies covering Brixton, Kingston, Ealing, Finsbury Park, Southwark, and Spitalfields.

Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said:

“The Met is getting smaller but more capable. We have a laser-like focus on ensuring our officers and staff are in roles where they can drive down crime on issues that matter the most to Londoners.

“This is what the public expects of the police, which is why we are putting neighbourhood policing first, tackling the crimes that we know are impacting the public in the busiest areas, and making the capital’s streets safer.

“We’re adding up to 170 additional officers, split between the West End and town centres across London. Thanks to the hard work of our local teams, neighbourhood crime has already fallen by almost a fifth over the last year and moving these officers to the frontline will make sure we are a more visible presence in London.

“While our budget has decreased in real terms, we are using this additional funding from City Hall and Home Office productively to support our mission to take a targeted approach to tackling volume crime and bolster our specialist tactics to disrupt the criminal gangs who fuel anti-social behaviour, robbery and theft.”

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said:

“Nothing is more important to me than keeping Londoners safe. Thanks to record funding from City Hall, the West End will see a 50 per cent increase in the number of police officers on the beat and an additional 90 police officers working in new or enhanced town centre teams in hotspot areas.

“Despite years of austerity by the previous government, this is the latest example of the Met Police and I prioritising what Londoners want and delivering on our pledge to put high visibility policing at the heart of fighting crime and rebuilding community confidence and trust.

“These new and boosted Safer Neighbourhood Teams will focus on tackling antisocial behaviour, phone robbery and shoplifting in key areas. This fresh targeted action is happening in tandem with enhanced police and partnership work already underway in our high streets and town centres this summer. We will continue to build on the crime reductions already achieved in the capital – with robbery, theft and knife crime down since the start of the financial year - to build a safer London for all.”

Already, the Met has recruited over 300 additional PCSOs for neighbourhood policing teams towards a target of 500, as well as adding over 300 officers from Superintendents to Constables.

This work to focus resource in the right places, builds on enhanced partnership action with local authorities, businesses and communities to tackle crime in London’s busy town centres and high streets, announced earlier this month.

The Met is arresting 1000 more criminals each month and thanks to the hard work of its officers, London’s Violence Reduction Unit, Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), local authorities and partners, the first six weeks of this financial year have seen promising reductions in a number of crime types compared to the same period last year.

• Neighbourhood crime down by 15.3 per cent

• Knife crime down by 18.1 per cent

• Residential burglary down by 17.7 per cent

• Theft from the person down by 15.6 per cent

• Personal robbery down by 12.8 per cent

• Shoplifting – solved 163 per cent more cases this year
  

• In the West End specifically the Met has reduced:

• Personal robbery by 20%

• Violence with injury by 25%

• Violence against a person by 8%

Ros Morgan, Chief Executive, Heart of London Business Alliance:

“A safer West End is essential to its success. We welcome the Mayor and Met Commissioner’s response to our calls for more policing. With over 200 million visitors a year and a £50 billion contribution to the UK economy, keeping this district secure isn’t optional — it’s vital. We’ll continue working with the Met to protect the West End’s reputation as a world-class destination.”

Dee Corsi, Chief Executive, New West End Company, said:

“We know, first-hand, the incredible work that the Metropolitan Police Service undertakes every day here in the West End to tackle anti-social behaviour, shoplifting, phone robbery and violence against women and girls. But we also know that tackling complex crime challenges is more difficult when resources are squeezed. That’s why today’s announcement, and renewed commitment to the West End, is a critical step forward. We will continue to work in partnership with the Metropolitan Police Service, the Mayor of London and other local stakeholders to ensure the West End remains safe and welcoming for all.”

Anthony Hemmerdinger, Managing Director, Boots said:

"Retail theft alongside intimidation and abuse of our team members is unacceptable, so we welcome this additional support from the Mayor and Metropolitan Police to increase resources in some of our busiest central London store locations.

“While we continue to invest significantly in schemes to deter and disrupt crime, including our state-of-the-art CCTV monitoring centre and bodycams for our team members in stores, it is only through close partnership working with Government, Police, and local communities, that we can ensure high streets feel like welcoming and safe spaces for people to work, shop and visit, all the time."

Against the backdrop of these improvements and increased demand for policing in London, tough choices are still being made across the organisation.

The Met is shrinking overall by 1,700 officers and staff – they have started by moving officers from the dedicated Royal Parks policing team and schools officers into local policing teams. This will ensure officers are part of larger neighbourhood policing teams, policing parks as part of larger teams and ensuring children are safe on their school commute where they are most at risk.

The Met are going further to place officers on the beat, ensuring London is a safer place to live, work and visit. A more visible presence will increase reassurance for the public and create a hostile environment for criminals who will be arrested in greater numbers.

The Met secured additional funding after submitting their draft budget which laid out how they would spend their money in 2025/26. As a result, they are using £32 million of additional funding from City Hall and the Home Office to reduce the total officer and staff reductions in priority areas.

The efficiency savings are due to real-term reductions in public spending on policing and every decision the Met makes is to ensure resources are focussed in the most vital areas and on core-policing priorities.

The funding will also allow specialist police capabilities to be expanded to support neighbourhood policing priorities and improve out outcomes in tackling high-harm offenders and violence against women and girls. This will include:

• Bolstering Flying Squad with over 50 additional officers to support neighbourhood policing as they tackle the organised crime gangs that fuel phone robbery and shoplifting.

• Scaling up our use of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) more widely supported by additional officers and staff. Currently LFR is used four times a week across two days, but this will increase up to five days a week, delivering up to 10 deployments a week across London to drive up arrests of wanted offenders.

• The Public Order Crime Team will expand to accommodate the rise in protest-related criminal investigations to ensure frontline officers are freed up to focus on local issues. Demand in this area increased in the last two years.

• Additional resource will be funded to support local policing teams to coordinate work to hunt down dangerous and predatory offenders identified in our V100 and Violence Harm Assessment work.

As well as targeting resource in specific priority areas, the funding has allowed the Met to reduce some of the previously outlined cuts – including providing 17 officers to join neighbourhood policing teams to support the continued policing of Royal Parks as part of our business as usually work and stopping previously proposed reductions to Flying Squad.

The Met is also publishing A New Met for London: Phase 2 - a plan for the next three years, following the success of the first plan to deliver more trust, less crime and high standards.

The new plan focusses on shedding distractions and bureaucracy that divert police away from crime-fighting, allowing our officers and staff to focus on what matters most to the public we serve, making greater use of technologies such as live facial recognition and automation, and providing officers and staff with the tools and equipment they need, to be more effective and more productive.

The Met is asking the public for their views. To share your views complete this survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6NCR3LH