Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is to press ahead with controversial plans to close both Catford and Deptford police stations. The Mayor of London has also given the green light to scrapping the police Borough Commander role, a move which could see policing loss it's local focus.
Closing these two police stations, as well as smaller bases across the borough, will leave Lewisham with just one police front counter at the main station in Lewisham town centre.
Ross Archer, the Conservative Candidate for Mayor of Lewisham, ran a petition over the summer calling for the plans to be dropped. The petition was signed by just short of 300 local residents and can still be signed online at ipetitions.com/petition/save-our-stations.
Lewisham Conservatives had previously called on the Mayor not scrap the role of Borough Commander. Ross Archer wrote to Mr Khan to argue that Lewisham faces a number of challenges and needs a dedicated Borough Commander, not a Regional Boss. Sadly the Mayor has rejected the case.
Reacting to the announcement, Ross said "Over 200 residents signed my petition calling for the Mayor to abandon these proposals, many more took part in the consultation to oppose these plans, but as leaked documents earlier this year suggests Sadiq Khan always planned these closures. Sadiq Khan cut £38million from the Met's budget and rejected a motion by Conservative Assembly Members to put it back. He should stop blaming others and take responsibility for his poor decision".
Deptford resident James Clark added "The three Labour MP's in Lewisham have all sat on thier hands, the Labour Mayor and Labour Councillors have been silent and the Labour Assembly Member for Lewisham has been invisible. They were all elected to stand up and fight for Lewisham residents but instead they've said and done nothing on these ill thought out plans. They have failed our borough because they are too weak to challenge the Mayor of London".