7. October 2025, the meeting was moved to the Council Chamber. Thanks for the refreshments, lovely bagels and home-made cake.

How Community Safety was run

• 2011 Neighbourhood Watch Association with membership contracts and details being kept on a spreadsheet system of the main coordinator.
• 2017 Police OWL was launched and run in partnership with Ourwatch
• 2025 Met Engage started across Greater London.

One quarter of Tower Hamlets Ward Panels do not function properly.

Read Met Engage only to pick up when ward panel meetings are held and then I publish it on the Safer Neighbourhoods Page. Some crime prevention is also good but available elsewhere more easily.

To report crime, do NOT use Met Engage, do NOT email or phone it to your local SNT.

To report crime find information on the Report page. Also the Best Practice page is useful.

The proposed closure of the Bethnal Green Station front counter was not discussed.

The Council meeting on 8/10/25 discusses that no proper consultation took place and the closure is strongly opposed by all, asking the Mayor of London to reserve his decision. See transmission of meeting. Motion on Police stations in Tower Hamlets.

Do not let it put you off. All those officers are new to the borough. I only recognised one face. Sadly officers come and go and are often not long enough in post to make connections.

If you feel let down, please follow advice on how to report. Yesterday’s meeting did not even mention the new live chat facility which is now available on the Met Police website.

I am more than willing to work with local police to increase community engagement and help reduce crime. Officers know how to reach me, please do. Just a thanks also for the lovely freebies at the meeting, the mouse mat is ace from Project Adder.

Alongside BCU Commander Brittany Clarke we will be joined by MPS Deputy Commissioner Matt Jukes QPM, who will open the evening and take part in a Q&A session. They will be joined by a wide range of MPS officers and staff from local and central teams, and I would be delighted if you could join us. The stalls handed out lovely freebies and the free food was also goot.

A memory from last year’s event

See the Met’s X report on the meeting

At tonight's community conversation we discussed everything from tackling drug dealing in local estates, our commitment to engaging better with school aged children to understanding how crime data is shared with the local community. #CommunityConversation #mylocalmet pic.twitter.com/Y4M34M74XT

— Tower Hamlets Police (@MPSTowerHam) April 15, 2024

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Points of Discussion

• Statistics, are currently not available as Met Police are changing their IT systems and stats won’t be available ’til early summer.
• The Crossbow attack at Arnold Circus
• Serious Organised Crime in Tower Hamlets
• You said we Did

There is unease about the unavailability of statistics, Commander Conway said that the governmental stats usually come in 3 monthly instalments. We usually get them monthly via the Met website directly.

An X user made a valid point see his post here:

It would be the responsibility of the @metpoliceuk Crime Commissioner to ensure that this is working. @current @MayorofLondon has shut down office. It is possible that the stats are quite dire. We should have two separate posts for @MayorofLondon and #PCC elected at different…

— Johanna Kaschke (@KaschkeJohanna) April 16, 2024

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Reporting to Police

It is very concerning that voices how bad the Police have become are becoming quite popular on social media but they tend to put people off from reporting to Police and that is harming the fight against crime. Whatever your perception of police is, they are our country’s law enforcement and we must use it and not descent into lawlessness or vigilantism. The anti-police sentiment harms the community and must be repelled.

Beware of free WhatsApp groups who invite you to report crime to them instead of police. That is a very bad practise.

Attendance

Since the Pro-Palestine flags came down in Tower Hamlets, people seem to have lost the desire to involve themselves with the Met Police. Only one Councillor attended Cllr Abu Chowdhury, the lead councillor for community safety. Also Tasnime Akunjee was present but nobody from Labour, Greens or Conservatives is that a sign of things to come?

It was noticeable that also nobody from Tower Hamlets Neighbourhood Watch Association (THNWA) attended the meeting. The head of Tower Hamlets Community Safety has requested a meeting with me.

PS: I’m still awaiting a verified transcript of the police presentation to be able to publish this in detail.