Bus crime down again

Friday July 2, 2010

Crime on the borough’s buses has tumbled by 4 per cent in a year with 623 offences committed between April 2009 and March this year compared with 646 over the previous 12-months.

Passengers are less likely to be the victim of crime on a bus, according to Transport for London (TfL) figures, and the number of crimes across the capital has also fallen to its lowest level for six years – down by 2,000 offences.

In Hammersmith & Fulham (H&F) the number of thefts on buses fell from 296 in 2008/09 to 264 in 2009/10. The number of drugs offences fell from 14 to 8 and ‘violence against the person’ fell from 255 to 245 in the same period.

Recruiting 440 additional officers to police transport hubs across London – like Hammersmith Broadway and Shepherds Bush – was given by TfL as one of the reasons for the decline.

H&F Council is also putting more bobbies on the beat by contributing £1.8 million a year for 60 extra town centre beat Police officers in the borough’s three major town centres.

Cllr Greg Smith, H&F Cabinet Member for Residents’ Services, says: “The extra Police that the council and TfL have into our transport hubs and major town centres are reaping dividends. Despite the significant challenges in a busy inner London borough, our local bobbies really are making these extra resources count with year-on-year falls in crime.”

Hammersmith Broadway is the capital’s second busiest transport interchange and also benefits from a dispersal zone which allows the Police to banish troublemakers if they are causing intimidation, harassment, alarm or distress. If they refuse to go they can be arrested.