Robberies down in Camden Town as council lauds new enforcement measures

The council’s community safety team is celebrating a successful start to new crime-fighting measures in Camden Town.

A new working group was recently introduced to combat unlicensed street trading, drug dealing and busking, with a focus on “enhancing public safety and quality of life”.

The group consists of the police, council departments such as licencing and community safety, Camden Town security services, and landowners including the River Trust.

The Town Hall reported that “increased visibility” of enforcement officers has “coincided with a decline in robbery and a levelling off in knife-enabled crime (KEC) and violence with injury (VWI) offending across the Camden Town Centre footprint”.

Stop and search has also been linked to a decline in KEC.

One of the key hotspots that was driving robbery offending was Koko nightclub.

Camden Council said this is no longer a hotspot, and that large groups gathering to sell nitrous oxide canisters who were also involved in robbery are no longer present.

The Town Hall also cites the involvement of outreach services such as Routes off the Streets (RTS) and Operation Adder, set up to understand the root causes of substance abuse, as helping to address the “underlying issues” of homelessness and substance abuse.

Drug distribution has also been a target of the council, which is using “covert patrols and leveraging local knowledge” to take “a strategic approach to enforcement efforts, which have resulted in significant arrests and seizures”.

“By working together, the council, police and partner agencies can continue to make meaningful progress in enhancing community safety and wellbeing in Camden Town and its surrounding areas,” the council report concluded.