Frustrated residents voiced their concerns about anti-social behaviour at a public meeting with police officers and council representatives this week, reports Marco Marcelline
Waltham Forest Council and local police faced questions from frustrated residents about their response to open drug usage and anti-social behaviour along High Road Leyton and the surrounding area.
At a community meeting at Leyton Great Hall on Wednesday (18th October), a panel including Khevyn Limbajee, the cabinet member for community safety, and Leyton and Wanstead MP John Cryer, as well as local policing boss Lora John, heard from a crowd of around 80 concerned residents.
In recent months, residents living near High Road Leyton have complained about aggressive begging, theft, and open drug use. Shop-owners have complained that their staff have faced violence when confronting people causing issues in their shop.
The situation has led to more than 1,500 residents and business owners signing an open letter warning that Leyton is at a “crisis point” with there being a risk of a “vigilante situation” if the authorities fail to act.
A resident of Park Road, Leyton, told the panel that she had the windows to her house smashed by drug users and that she had never seen the area in such a bad way.
“We live in fear, after a certain time we can’t come out [of our homes]. We don’t know if drug dealers will be there. We are home-owners, we pay our mortgages. We’ve been woken up because of people shouting and screaming. I’ve lived here for 30 years, I’ve never seen it this bad. You’ve got beggars along Leyton High Road harassing old people.”
When asked what steps residents could take to protect their homes and prevent people from using drugs in their front gardens, the police suggested “trimming big hedges”, investing in “security lights”, and putting up “beware of the dog signs”.
One resident highlighted the presence of human faeces in the area. “I see human faeces in St Mary’s Road and it stays there for weeks. It’s not an acceptable condition for anybody. I’ve seen [faeces] outside nurseries. It’s got exponentially worse in the last six months and I’ve not seen any cleaning services at all.”
In response, the council’s strategic director of neighbourhoods and the environment Debbie Porter said that “street cleaning services are out [on the street] all the time” but added that she would “take” the resident’s cleanliness concerns “back to the office”.
Supt John, who leads Waltham Forest’s neighbourhood policing team, told residents that Leyton police would change their scheduling of social media posts about routine patrols in the area amid complaints by residents that the posts were letting drug users know the police’s whereabouts.
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Police at the meeting told residents to keep reporting issues they witnessed, stating, “the more [reports that are received], the more information we have, and the more we can do to take action.” Action that had been taken in recent weeks, the police said, included the charging of over 20 people and criminal behaviour orders being placed.
This prompted one resident to say that they had been regularly “fobbed off” by police operators when calling the emergency number 999 to report “people smoking crack [cocaine] outside” their home. The resident explained that operators had told them to call the non-emergency 101 instead as the police were “taking too many calls” from their specific neighbourhood.
A representative from housing association London & Quadrant (L&Q) was also in attendance at the meeting. The council said it was working with the housing association to “design crime out” of a planned redevelopment site near Leyton Station, and would “prioritise infrastructure that keeps people safe”.
L&Q said it was working with the police on the issuing of closure orders, and was “restructuring” so that more of L&Q tenants and nearby residents “know us”.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the Senior Neighbourhoods Policing Team said the Wednesday meeting gave them an “opportunity to inform residents of [their] short, medium and long term policing plan to address the ongoing concerns of crime and anti-social behaviour in the Leyton area along with some of the proactive and engagement work we have been doing over the past two weeks in Leyton.
“We have taken on board the suggestions from our residents and by working together with them and our partners, we will implement these suggestions in order to deliver more trust, less crime and higher standards to the Leyton community.”
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