• Norwood Forum

Safer Norwood

Norwood Forum is working to attend Safer Neighbourhood Panel meetings for all four wards in our area.
These are public meetings, usually held quarterly. We will publish the dates, times and locations with as much notice as possible so that residents can attend.
Click each ward name below for more information on each SNP:
Knights Hill
Gipsy Hill
West Dulwich
St Martin’s.
​Upcoming meetings will be listed on our Events page.

What are Safer Neighbourhood Panels?
Each ward also has a Safer Neighbourhood Panel (SNP) – sometimes also called a Safer Neighbourhood Board – which brings police and communities together to set local policing and crime priorities, review safety concerns and support collaborative problem-solving. These panels form part of the Met’s approach to ensuring that policing reflects the needs of the people who live and work in each area.

Safer Neighbourhood Panels aim to:

  • Enable local engagement with the police
  • Enable local accountability of the police
  • Focus on the principles and priorities of the Police and Crime Plan
  • Monitor crime performance and public perceptions
  • Inform the development of borough and ward-level policing priorities
  • Monitor Metropolitan Police Service support for ward panels and community contact sessions
  • Engage with Borough Independent Advisory Groups and other mechanisms (such as Neighbourhood Watch and Stop & Search monitoring groups)

For background on these SNP's, please see the handbook here.

Each SNP meeting is attended by representatives from the relevant Met Police Safer Neighbourhood Team (SNT). These are the dedicated local policing units focused on addressing community-level issues within specific wards. Their core responsibilities include problem-solving around antisocial behaviour, conducting reassurance patrols, supporting crime-prevention initiatives, and working with residents, businesses and partner organisations to identify and respond to local priorities. SNTs operate separately from emergency response teams and provide consistent, ward-based policing informed by ongoing engagement with the community.

You can also stay informed by signing up to the Met Police's new MetEngage, a free messaging service that aims to keeps you connected to what’s happening in your area. Whether its crime updates, safety advice, or news from your local policing team, you’ll get the information that matters to you when it matters most. 

 
The safety of our community is a high priority for Norwood Forum. However, we have taken the decision to end our role as a co-host of the Community Safety Partnership (CSP) with the Lambeth Safer Neighbourhood Board.
 
An initiative led by our committee colleague Philip Virgo, the CSP will transition to become a pilot community cluster, co-hosted by the Lambeth Neighbourhood Watch Association, working with and through the local area Neighbourhood Watches and Safe Neighbourhood Panels. Philip is the Development Lead for Neighbourhood Watch for Lambeth.
 
There are several reasons we have mutually agreed to end our hosting relationship:
  1. Data protection: The CSP holds a separate database for distribution of its monthly newsletter. This does not comply with our Privacy Policy.
  2. Accountability: The CSP is described as a 'partnership of equals, not accountable to the Norwood Forum', which makes it very difficult for us to act as a responsible host.
  3. Coverage: The CSP has a scope and ambition that expands beyond the geographical area of the Norwood Forum. With our limited resources, we must focus our efforts on our local community in Tulse Hill, West Norwood and Gipsy Hill.  
Norwood Forum will continue to maintain key information on community safety on our website under the Useful Info menu tab. This includes Personal Safety and Help and Emergency Services, as well as latest news and events on matters of community safety via all of its information platforms - and in doing so will maintain a close working relationship with the CSP.
 
We plan to have a committee representative attend each of the four Safer Neighbourhood Panel meetings in our area (West Dulwich, St Martin's, Knight's Hill and Gipsy Hill), so we can directly raise issues of concern with the police and keep our community informed on what they are saying as well. We will publish the information gathered on dedicated pages under this Community Safety tab.
 
Contact the new CSP
Please use this email: community@winsafe.ltd
 
What are your main safety concerns?
Please let Norwood Forum know so we can most effectively direct our energies to the issues that matter the most to our community: info@norwoodforum.org.
You should report all crime by dialling 101: the Police non-urgent crime reporting and enquiries number, or see here on the Metropolitan Police website for other ways of contacting them, and here on our website for other police-related advice.