Exclusive: Residents Flag Up Safety Issues Over Romford Town Centre, Harold Hill And Elm Park As Police Stress They Are Listening To The Community.

Havering Police has reassured residents that they are listening to their needs and where they feel the most unsafe across the borough.

The Havering Daily reached out to readers to ask them what parts of the borough did they feel the most unsafe in and received hundreds of comments with the following results:

Romford Town Centre. Romford station area. Romford underpasses-with focus on their poor lighting. Hilldene shopping centre in Harold Hill. Parts of Elm Park by the station-all came up as the main areas residents felt unsafe in, particularly women.

Members of the community stressed how underpasses in Romford, especially during the evening, felt very unsafe with the poor quality lighting in them and those loitering, often drinking.

Locals were also keen to point out a general decline across most areas of the borough, that left residents with a sense of sadness at just how the borough seems to have deteriorated. Focus on empty shops, dirty streets, scooter riders everywhere dropping litter and a sense of lack of pride for their area.

Chief Inspector Routley spoke with the Havering Daily about the ongoing hard work officers are doing across the borough and stressed that they were listening to residents and their concerns.

“I’d just like to reassure people that we are listening to their concerns and will look to work with the council to make areas highlighted as issues, feel safer.

The Street Safe link is the best way to do this. The data is reviewed monthly and we sit down with Havering Council to see what the feedback is and what we can do together to improve areas.”

The street safe link provides people with the opportunity to enter areas across the borough where they feel unsafe and the reasons why. The information is then reviewed by local officers who work inconjunction with Havering Council to see how things can then be improved.

Mr Routly continued: “I would also push that ward panel membership is another key thing people can do. Each ward team has a ward panel made up of residents, business owners and councillors. They meet with the SNT team every three months and set their policing priorities. If you join the panel you can help shape the local policing picture. Work with us to improve your area “

Police officers across the borough are working hard to address these issues and a lot of work is being done across Romford and the town centre. Havering Enforcement officers led by Jane Eastaff do a very proactive job across the borough, working hand in hand with local police officers.

Sadly, we often lack police officers due to them being called to cover the endless list of London protests and this does have a knock effect to areas like Havering. Officers are frequently abstracted to London, due to the general lack of officer numbers.

Those here are working tirelessly to do the best they can under difficult circumstances.

Please see the Street Safe link below:

https://www.police.uk/pu/notices/streetsafe/street-safe

Stay up to date with all of our latest updates and content by following us on our social media accounts!

We have created community pages where we will share our up-to-date stories happening in the area. Add the area closest to where you live.