Hampstead Conservatives have launched a campiagn to convince the Met to keep a Police Station in Hampstead. We have written to verey voter in Hampstead Town ward with the letter below. If you would like to support the campaign please sign the online petition http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/campaign-to-keep-a-police-station-in-hampstead/
Police presence in Hampstead & West Hampstead
We are writing to you as concerns have been raised by suggestions that the Metropolitan Police may be looking to sell 40 police buildings across London. We are concerned that this includes the closure of both Hampstead Police Station and the Police Stables in West Hampstead.
These concerns are magnified locally as Labour-run Camden Council has previously identified Kentish Town as the location for a central police base plan for Camden. When questioned, Labour Councillors have refused to give calculations of the likely response time for the police to respond to 999 calls in Hampstead and West Hampstead from a centralised police station in Kentish Town. Pressure from our community has meant we are urging you to make your views clear before these ideas are presented as a fait accompli.
Hampstead Conservatives have launched a campaign to:
(a) maintain policing in the north of Camden and keep a strong police presence in Hampstead;
(b) maintain a visible police building in Hampstead; and
(c) keep the police stables in West Hampstead.
Conservatives have fought for many years to maintain a police station in Hampstead and are not giving up yet.
Hampstead Police Station and 999 Response Times
Ever since the move to borough-based policing in the late 1990s and the subsequent increase in paperwork inflicted on the police, response times to 999 calls in Hampstead have suffered.
Hampstead Police Station has been under threat several times in recent years. Chris Philp led a successful campaign to prevent its closure in 2009 but it is feared that the Met is once again considering plans to sell it off.
We must maintain a police building in Hampstead but if there really is no alternative but to sell Hampstead Police Station then the Met should not do so until they have found alternative visible and permanent premises in the smaller station house next to the main police station or in one of the many vacant retail premises on Heath Street.
Why we need a police station in Hampstead
Maintaining a physical police presence is important for Hampstead residents because:
1. it gives the Safer Neighbourhood Teams a base near the wards they serve;
2. 999 response teams can only respond quickly if they are based in the area they are serving, not in a single base in Kentish Town;
3. the public need a counter to go to in order to report crimes and present documents;
4. police need to be based locally so that they understand the area they protect; and
5. a visible and permanent police presence re-assures the public and deters criminals.
How you can stop these proposals
1. Sign our online petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/campaign-to-keep-a-police-station-in-hampstead/
2. Write to Stephen Greenhalgh, Deputy Mayor for Policing urging him to make the Metropolitan Police:
(a) maintain policing in the north of Camden and keep a strong police presence in Hampstead;
(b) maintain a visible police building in Hampstead; and
(c) keep the police stables in West Hampstead.
3 Write to Boris Johnson, Mayor of London urging him to support these proposals.
Write to both at
Greater London Authority
City Hall, The Queen's Walk
London SE1 2AA
4 Return the enclosed card to us which we will present to Boris Johnson, Mayor of London.
Together we can prevent serious damage being done to visible policing in Hampstead and West Hampstead.
Cllr Andrew Mennear
Conservative Leader, London Borough of Camden
1a Heath Hurst Rd
Hampstead
NW3 2RU