‘We have a very comprehensive programme to tackle violence against women and girls’.

Following the brutal and horrific murder of Zara Aleena last month, the Havering Daily London news section had the opportunity to speak with Councillor khayer Chowdhury.

Councillor Chowdhury is Redbridge Council’s Cabinet Member for Crime, Safety and Community cohesion and also one of the most proactive councillors across London.

Last week, we asked Councillor Chowdhury about Redbridge’s plans to tackle violence against women and girls.

“We have had a very comprehensive programme to tackle violence against women and girls for the last eighteen months. We were actually the first council to launch the women’s safety walk where we asked women in the borough to come and tell us where across Redbridge they felt unsafe, where lighting needed to be improved, if there were areas they felt unsafe in.

“We also undertook an audit for women- a two month long public consultation where thousands of women responded to share with us their concerns across the borough.

“The results were clear that women wanted to see a police uniformed presence across the borough and we acted upon this straight away.”

Councillor Chowdhury is a councillor who takes his role extremely seriously and really does make it his life’s work to make sure his borough is as safe as possible.

“We set up two enforcement hubs paid by the council where police officers and council officials can sit and chat with local residents about their concerns. The two hubs are in Hainault and Ilford and have proven to be extremely popular amongst local residents who did ask for more visible policing.”

Following Zara’s horrific murder, Councillor Chowdhury has also called for more policing in the Cranbrook Road area to reassure women.

“We made sure more police officers were deployed in that area not only to reassure women walking home, but also so women could chat with them about their safety concerns.

“We do have 689 CCTV across Redbridge, the highest number this borough has ever had, and has also doubled in size over the last few years. Importantly they are monitored 24 hours a day.

“Our libraries have also become pop up hubs for police officers to come and chat with local residents twice a week in the evenings. So for residents who might not be able to access a police station, they can pop down to their local library and have a chat with one of their safer neighbourhood officers.”

Alongside all this hard work Councillor Chowdhury has been doing throughout the last few years, he is also proud to have a dedicated town centre team now.

“We have a team of 25 officers based in Ilford as a town centre team.It is a team dedicated on town centre policing and has been doing a fantastic job across the area.

“One of the things residents have also been concerned about is the low level of anti social behaviour that has been blighting our streets. As a result of this we have introduced a night time enforcement team that are working hard to stamp this out across Redbridge. This often impacts residents life a great deal and with our enforcement team we can work with residents in stamping this out.”

Councillor Khayer Chowdhury is completely dedicated to his work and really prides himself in doing the best that he can. This is clearly shown by all the work being undertaken across Redbridge and how pro active he is when residents ask for help.