We have been proud to lead from the front to save the 24/7 police counter in Hammersmith Police Station, which Sadiq Khan wants to close and which the local Labour leadership have failed to defend.
For two weeks after we launched our campaign to save our borough’s only 24/7 Police counter, H&F Labour was missing in action. Faced with the loss of an important element of policing, they said nothing.
They either lacked the desire or the confidence to tackle their soft-on-crime Mayor as he continues to whittle down our share of police resources.
By contrast, we wrote to the Labour Council immediately after launching our campaign, offering to work with them to prevent the salami slicing of our local police resource, and offered solutions to preserve the counter that the Council could implement with our support.
Following this, and a groundswell of public support for keeping the counter, they appear to have decided they also oppose the closure of the 24/7 counter.
Having spoken to our Borough Commander on Tuesday 22 July, it is clear that this is a decision coming from the Mayor and Met Leadership, and that if it were up to our local officers, they would choose to preserve this resource. Hammersmith Police station has a state-of-the-art custody suite and had a £60 million refurbishment only 5 years ago. The counter not only serves the public but also allows for the easy function of their custody suite 24/7. Once gone, it will make day to day operations harder, and closing it sends entirely the wrong signal to would-be criminals.
For our part, we will keep pressuring the Mayor, the Met and our Council to take meaningful action and, if the Mayor is hell-bent on taking away this resource, find a smart local solution. It is incumbent on politicians to back the police with meaningful resource – and that is what we as your local Conservatives would do.
Please keep signing our petition here.
Read about this in the local press here: https://www.mylondon.news/news/west-london-news/very-disappointing-west-london-police-32157193
