Police boundaries changing

We have heard reports of a major shake-up of Safer Neighbourhood Team boundaries. Changes will happen in the very near future.

It is not clear at the moment whether or how far local councillors were consulted. I was at a meeting of one of our ward residents’ associations when this was first raised with me. Cllr. Self was also present but maintained his usual discreet silence, certainly proferring no view or indicating agreement or disagreement with what is proposed.

So far as we can tell, Surbiton Hill SNT is to be broken up, with School Lane being hived off into Tolworth and Hook Rise, while the rest of the ward combines with most of Berrylands.

The idea behind it, officially, is to police ‘natural neighbourhoods’. At present SNT boundaries are the same as electoral ward boundaries. This means that there are 16 of them in Kingston at present. We understand that this number will be cut to 10. While a case can be made that the current wards are not ‘natural neighbourhoods’ (indeed, as councillors, we reckoned that this ward had at least seven such!) we cannot see how reducing the total number of SNTs is going to make neighbourhoods more – rather than less – natural than the wards.