Vince Cable

The borough's police met almost all their goals over the last year, cutting crime across the board, with the exception of vehicle crime where thefts from vehicles and interfering with vehicles rose.

The figures (April 1 2006 to March 31 2007) were reported to the latest meting of the Community Police Partnership by the new borough commander Chief Superintendent Rick turner who noted that overall crime was down 12%, burglary down 24%, robbery down 9%, criminal damage down 25% and assaults down 8%.

MP Vincent Cable, who was at the meeting, said that: "the figures are very encouraging and a direct result of the increase in police numbers building up steadily over the last 6 to 7 years and permitting the deployment of safer neighbourhood teams with regular beat patrols".

"The areas where the police clearly need to raise their game is in respect of detection rates which, even though higher than the Met average, are very low; under 20% burglary and barely 20% for crime as a whole. I was delighted to see that the new chief superintendent, who has a distinguished history as a detective on major London crime cases, is totally committed to the battle against crime in the borough".