London widget tracks Lewisham crime drop

Lewisham's crime tracking data
Another crimewatching widget has landed in our inbox. The falling crime rate has given the Mayor of London a taste for transparency, so this new dashboard allows people to see the statistics for themselves. The Mayor's office says:

"Last year the Mayor, as part of his Police and Crime Plan, pledged even greater transparency over crime data and set the Metropolitan Police Service the challenge to reduce seven key neighbourhood crimes by 20 per cent by 2016. Using this interactive dashboard Londoners are now able to track progress against this target, compare local performance every month to other boroughs and look at the overall crime picture in the capital.

"The dashboard reveals that on the latest monthly figures, the Met have cut MOPAC 7 crimes overall by 18 per cent against the 2012 baseline - against a target of 20 per cent by 2016. It also shows the impact falling crime in London has had on national figures with the crime drop last year in the capital outpacing the national fall and accounting for almost half of the reduction across England and Wales. For the first time the data reveals that crime nationally would be rising by 0.4 per cent were it not for the strong Met performance."

Lewisham's performance for the year to September 2014 mirrors the rest of the London, falling significantly on each of the seven key crimes, with the exception of arguably the most important one - Violence With Injury, where we are ranked 23rd overall in London. Overall, the borough is ranked 16th-best in the capital, according to the MOPAC 7 metric.

It's encouraging, though not surprising, to see that London is outperforming the rest of the country in terms of the falling crime rate. The falling crime rate is one of the long-term factors that is making inner London an increasingly desirable place to live. And it's a moment for BC to reflect that 2014 is the first summer to have passed without us having to report any blood being spilled in and around Brockley Cross or Brockley Station.