Make Romford’s Streets Safer Now! -‘Councillors Must Do More To Create Safer Streets.’

84 Violent offences recorded in just one month.

Romford Councillor David Taylor has launched a campaign to make the streets of Romford safe. Councillor Taylor has been calling for better lighting and the closure of park gates for a long time and has now stepped up his safety campaign in a bid to put the safety of women and girls first across the borough.

Councillor Taylor Writes:

The horrific events of last week, in which a 15 year old girl was raped in a Romford subway, is a stark reminder to us Councillors that we must do more to keep women and children safe in Romford.

Whilst this council has done something, we clearly still have an issue and it is time to deliver safer streets, now. 

In 2023, Councillor Judith Holt and I met with the family of an elderly resident who was mugged in the very same subway. We walked the subways with senior Councillors and council staff and flagged areas of concern. 

That was not the first time that I raised concerns about our subways. I have repeatedly flagged that residents want to them to be cleaner, better lit, and to have CCTV in them. Even the addition of mirrors on the corners, as we see in other places all over the UK, would help a little. 

I use the subways every day, because Romford isn’t just somewhere I represent as a politician, it is my home and my neighbourhood. I often have near misses with bikes that fly down the ramps. I often pass people selling or using drugs, witness litter and even human excrement in them, and there isn’t a day go by that they don’t smell worse than a local zoo. 

In a lot of ways, the fear of crime is much worse than the levels of crime here in Romford. However, some offences are on the rise. Police data shows that violent and sexual offences for April were 85, up from 70 in 2023. There were 64 cases of ASB, up from just 28 in 2023.

Our parks are left unlocked at night, and I just don’t buy what the councillors say about it being OK. Every time I raise the parks I get some excuse about how not all parks can be locked. Sure, but the ones in Romford town centre can, and residents are constantly telling me about ASB in those parks.

Seven months ago, I stood up in the Town hall and read out a list of attacks on women in our parks. The response of the Cabinet was to say that these “didn’t happen at night”. 

I don’t think anyone is OK with 84 violent and sexual offences, in just one month, in Romford. But I do think that our council is failing to do enough. 

Under the last administration, the Conservatives set aside over £1m of cash from developers to upgrade our CCTV. This resulted in the CCTV control room being upgraded to be far more modern and effective. In fact, the HRA recently cut the ribbon on that and made a fanfare of it in the local paper. And that’s good, now we have an up to date control room. 

But, a recent Freedom of Information Request showed that 32% of our town’s CCTV is broken. That’s 23 out of 72 cameras, meaning 23 blind-spots, and our subways don’t even have CCTV in them. 

For some time now, I have been calling for CCTV to be expanded to the subways. I’ve made that call because the money is there. The same place the Conservatives found the £1m to sort out the control room. 

In November 2024, I revealed to the Havering Daily that the council has millions of unspent CIL money. CIL, or Community Infrastructure Levy, is money that developers have to pay to the council. It is ring fenced for things such as CCTV. 

Look around our town centre at all the flats going up. Every one of those is a new CIL payment to the council. We’ve got millions, and those millions are not impacted by the massive deficit the council has. 

This means that, if the council wanted to, it could spend £1million on new CCTV and CCTV repairs in the town centre. All they have to do is sign off on a plan to do so. We know it won’t happen over night, but we can make the commitment now.

I was told that the plan to replace and repair cameras could only be put into place once the new control room was done. Well, we’ve seen the images, it’s open and working.

So, it is time our council commit to spending more to urgently repair and expand our CCTV network. 

I applaud the councillors who have worked hard to raise issues of violence against women and girls. This is a vital issue. But, we need to do more. 

More than twice a day, in April this year, someone faced violent and sexual assault in Romford town centre. Twice a day! Whether that is higher or lower then elsewhere doesn’t matter to me. 

This is why I have launched my Safer Streets Now campaign. 

Safer Streets Now is calling on the council to do three simple things. We can’t the council to increase and repair CCTV, lock the parks at night, and provide better street lights. 

Since I launched the petition, over 300 people signed it in the first 24 hours. I want you to join us. 

You can sign the petition by visiting www.saferstreetsnow.com. 

I am also calling on everyone who supports the campaign to join me outside the Town Hall on 23rd July at 6pm. We will be peacefully protesting for safer streets, and hearing from local women who want to se the council do more. 

More details on the protest will be released over the next week, please make sure you can join us and share the news with friends and families.

The money is there, I’ve proven that. The incentive is there, women and children are being hurt. So, it is time for councillors to take things up a gear and deliver safer streets now. 

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