Grahame Park Estate visit
Eighteen months into the borough’s ‘Clear, Hold, Build’ initiative to tackle organised crime and anti-social behaviour on Grahame Park Estate, Deputy Mayor of London for Crime and Police, Kaya Comer-Schwartz, has visited Grahame Park in Colindale to see the impressive progress that has been made.
The estate was one of the first sites in the country to pilot the Home Office-sponsored scheme designed at improving the quality of life for residents in areas blighted by criminals through a three-stage approach: ‘clear’ – targeted police activity to disrupt organised crime and other criminality in the area; ‘hold’ – a period during which the improvements made during the ‘clear’ phase are embedded and other partners come in to get involved with providing a good foundation for the third phase of ‘build’ which is about community-led action to foster resilience and cohesion and prevent crime from happening again, and cementing relationships between residents and all the stakeholders involved (the council, police, housing providers and others).
On Grahame Park, the ‘clear’ phase resulted in more than 300 arrests for a range of offences. In year one of the project, these have helped to achieve an 11% reduction in violence against the person with injury and without injury by 9%. This decrease has continued into year two. There has also been a 33% reduction in anti-social behaviour calls and a 50% fall in residential and non-residential burglary.
Since the end of the ‘clear’ phase, the council has spearheaded efforts to ‘hold’ the gains made, through the involvement of the Community Safety Team, engagement with the community to develop a new ‘brand’ for the initiative – Love Grahame Park Community – and the development of plans to open a community café later this year. People living and working on the estate have been key to embedding the changes, with initiatives underway to build community cohesion. A panel of community members have also been recruited who will be working together with the council over the coming months to award small grants for community improvement projects.
On her visit to the estate on Friday, Ms Comer-Schwartz met community leaders including Bina Omare from the Colindale Communities Trust and volunteers at ‘The Loop’, a community re-use hub. She was led on the tour of the estate by Inspector Tom Hinson from Barnet Community Policing Team, and Councillor Sara Conway, Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Participation.
Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, Kaya Comer-Schwartz, said: “Neighbourhood policing plays a vital role in supporting our communities and ensuring safety, so I was really pleased to see first-hand how the Met have been working in partnership with Barnet Council and Barnet Homes to tackle crime and address community concerns with this targeted local policing approach.”
Inspector Hinson said: "Across the Met, we are focused on tackling the crimes that matter most to communities and Clear, Hold, Build is a key tool we're using to improve neighbourhoods. We've made great progress over the past 18 months, but the work doesn't end here. We'll continue to work alongside residents and partners to keep crime down and help the community thrive."
Councillor Conway added: “This has been a total team approach, absolute collaboration. You can’t clear, hold and build a community without the key people in that community and the other stakeholders. We have come on a journey from a point where it was a really bad situation 18 months ago, to something we can all be proud of. I am looking forward to seeing how we can continue to ‘hold’ and ‘build’ here on Grahame Park to achieve further success together.”