The newly landscaped Dulwich Square

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

3 hours ago, Rockets said:

I am not making stuff up

Do you believe "LTNs increase crime" - yes or no?

If yes, prove it. If no, stop wibbling on.

[alice]

They may well increase fear of crime which results in fewer people around.  Empty streets do not feel safe, especially perhaps for women.

[Earl Aelfheah]

If people feel fearful, probably best not to post alarmist stuff on a local forum about pollution, collisions and crime.

Edited August 4 by Earl Aelfheah

[first mate]

Why then do you think police were knocking on doors in this specific area and talking to residents about it? 

[alice]

29 minutes ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

If people feel fearful, probably best not to post alarmist stuff on a local forum about pollution, collisions and crime.

That is a deliberate I’m sure misunderstanding of my post. Why would you do that?

[Rockets]

14 hours ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

You appear to be cherry picking - looking at only three crime categories from a list of many.

That's a bit rich! I have been very clear why I looked at those three categories - if you look back at my original post in 2024 I explain why as this was in relation to phone snatches and increases in street crime that were being reported at the time. Those are categories that are most relevant to street crime.

14 hours ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

You then compare partial data for 2021, with whole years' data from subsequent years. You also fail to account for background changes in London crime rates (across the whole set, but it's particularly relevant for 2021 - covid lockdowns remember)

Again, I have been very clear that 2021 was only a partial set of data. 2022/2023 and now 2024 are full sets of data. Ah, so you acknowledge then that your crime is not increased in the London 72 LTNs in the the Aldred report may have to come with a caveat of Covid lockdowns - excellent. I am glad we have established that.

14 hours ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

You ignore the fact that 'other theft' actually falls according to your own numbers - one of the categories you claim to have risen.

That one category falls between 2022 and 2023 so not sure what your point is there.

14 hours ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

You use partial data for 2025 (apparently the year in which you've been told there has been a recent spike in crime) and compare it to whole, previous years. You ignore the comparisons which are available for the same period in those previous years and which show falling crime in the first 5 months of 2025.

Again putting words in to my mouth - where do I say 2025 is the time of the spike in crime. I think you are trying to weave a erroneous narrative again. No one can say what the final crime figures will be for 2025 but it does look like theft from person could well be higher again - doesn't it? The others look like they may trend lower.

Yes I am looking at annual figures - that's a 12 month period or one calendar year. You are focusing in on a 5 month period - that is not a 12 month period or a calendar year - you comparing apples with pears as you desperately try to deflect. It's a bit like the cycle lobby only looking at cycling in the summer months and claiming great increases in cycling!!!

 

12 hours ago, alice said:

That is a deliberate I’m sure misunderstanding of my post. Why would you do that?

This is part of the modus operandi I am afraid.....

13 hours ago, Dogkennelhillbilly said:

Do you believe "LTNs increase crime" - yes or no?

@Dogkennelhillbilly the issue with @Earl Aelfheah is that they repeatedly accuse me of saying things that I do not say. They are accusing me of making up that the PCSO told me that there was a correlation between road closures and increases in crime. I did not make that up - that is the issue here. For goodness sake the PCSOs were knocking on people's doors and delivering leaflets.....

Now....given you have bothered to ask me what I think rather than trying to put words into my mouth as others love to do....

Do I think that LTNs create an environment where certain types of crime are easier to execute?  Absolutely.

Do I think we are seeing that play out in some parts of Dulwich to detriment of people who live there? Absolutely.

Do I think there are a group of people who will never accept that or agree with that? Absolutely.

Do I think they're being deliberately blinkered? Absolutely.

Do I think that if they thought rationally about it that they also would see the sense in the argument? Absolutely.

Do I think they will be able to bring themselves to do that? Absolutely not.

Edited August 5 by Rockets

[Insuflo]

2 hours ago, first mate said:

Why then do you think police were knocking on doors in this specific area and talking to residents about it? 

I simply do not believe that they were. 

[Rockets]

1 hour ago, Insuflo said:

I simply do not believe that they were.

Oh wow, why are some of you so sceptical? Why would I make that up? Do you not believe or not want to believe?

The denial syndrome is off the scale! They were leafletting houses and knocking on doors.

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

11 hours ago, Rockets said:

I did not make that up - that is the issue here...

Do I think that LTNs create an environment where certain types of crime are easier to execute?  Absolutely.

Do I think we are seeing that play out in some parts of Dulwich to detriment of people who live there? Absolutely.

OK - now we are clear on your absolutely held beliefs. Please prove that the Dulwich LTNs have increased crime.

[Earl Aelfheah]

11 hours ago, Rockets said:

Oh wow, why are some of you so sceptical? Why would I make that up?

So far you've made up several claims, offering no evidence for any of them - concerning a road filter increasing pollution, crime and pedestrian road danger.

I am sceptical that the police have told rockets (and no one else) that a 5 year old traffic filter is responsible for increased crime. There is no evidence that this is true (plenty that it's unlikely). It does seem like an incredible co-incidence that someone with a history of making unsubstantiated claims about the (supposed) negative impacts of a road filter, happens to be the only one that they've said this to. 

Edited August 5 by Earl Aelfheah

[Insuflo]

12 hours ago, Rockets said:

Oh wow, why are some of you so sceptical? Why would I make that up? Do you not believe or not want to believe?

The denial syndrome is off the scale! They were leafletting houses and knocking on doors.

As I asked you previously: exactly when and where? Can we see this leaflet? What exactly were you told?

The SNT officers in our ward do sometimes distribute their newsletter door to door and I would imagine the DV team do likewise. SNTs will also conduct targeted patrols of problem areas or to address specific criminal behaviour. 
But the latest Dulwich Village SNT newsletter (it’s available on the DV SNT twitter feed) makes no mention rising crime, LTNs, road layout changes etc. Nor is there any mention in the DV SNT social media posts.

 I don’t doubt that the police and PCSOs in the DV team make efforts to speak to people locally and give crime prevention advice. However, your claim that you were told by one of these officers that crime was rising due to changes in traffic management, this to me rings as untrue.

Edited August 5 by Insuflo

[Penguin68]

43 minutes ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

that a 5 year old traffic filter is responsible for increased crime.

I do not understand why you keep on making the point that the LTN is 5 years old. If it is an arrangement which attracts crime for whatever reason (by the way, I am not asserting it is) then that attraction will continue, making that area, compared with others, more likely to be the site of (future) crime.  If you choose, along amongst others, never to lock your doors then you would not be surprised to be constantly burgled. However long you have not been locking your doors (always assuming you replace the items stolen).

In general criminals choose places where (1) they are less likely to be seen or identified and where (2) the pickings are seen to be of interest. The Dulwich Village area is wealthy (2) and offers - now - roads which have less traffic and offer less visibility (1) - particularly for thefts and attacks on people, when there are fewer cars passing on their way to somewhere else.

It does seem incredibly unlikely (in addition) that an individual would make up out of whole cloth a story about police warnings, nor the narrative about these. And it would be a very poor use of police resource to spend time polling and warning people who are no more at risk of crime than anyone else in the borough. 

 

[IlonaM]

Was down there this morning, crossing from bottom of Court Lane over to the post office. As someone with limited mobility I'm more concerned about cyclists wizzing through along Carlton Avenue to/from Dulwich village seemingly without thinking about pedestrians. One cyclist stopped to let me over, another wizzed around him and kept going! 

[exdulwicher]

1 hour ago, Penguin68 said:

The Dulwich Village area is wealthy (2) and offers - now - roads which have less traffic and offer less visibility (1) - particularly for thefts and attacks on people, when there are fewer cars passing on their way to somewhere else.

This idea that somehow drivers provide "oversight" is oft repeated but also total nonsense. No-one in a car is ever going to be stopping to offer assistance, partly because it causes almost instant traffic jams and confusion and partly because people feel nice and safe in their little cocoon and, if they've even noticed anything criminal in the first place, they certainly aren't going to get out. They're going to lock the doors and wind the windows up. The car actually removes a lot of the human interaction possibilities - drivers are far far less likely to stop.

The people who DO stop and offer assistance - that's almost always pedestrians. And even then many people will walk past, pretend to be on the phone etc; it quite often takes someone with real assertion to get some help in from "outside". There's a critical mass where if one person stops and helps (say someone who's tripped and fallen), then the first wave of people will walk past, ignore it (or pretend to ignore it) and it's not until a second and third person have stopped (or the first person has started yelling for help) that anyone else gets involved.

I've seen it a couple of times and there's a similar psychological scenario that happens in building fires. It's astonishing how many people will wait until there are literally flames at the door before deciding that the alarm might be genuine and they should probably do something.

And surely (if your assertion is true) that would make pedestrianised high streets the most dangerous places of all yet they seem to be the high streets that thrive best...

[Earl Aelfheah]

And here we go. Rockets has achieved exactly what he set out to. To be clear:

There is no evidence of increased crime. Data suggests that it is flat across the wider area, and that there has been no spike around the filter. Data for the first 5 months of this year actually suggest it’s falling. Research suggests that in general LTNs reduce crime.

There is no evidence of increased road danger. There is data showing a reduction in collisions and serious injuries.

There is no evidence of increased pollution. Local air quality monitoring shows that there have been significant drops in NO2.

So what we have is an individual making stuff up. And yet when they say that a policemen told them (and only them) that crime has increased as a direct result of a road filter, apparently it's unconscionable that one should be sceptical.

Rockets repeatedly makes things up in order to exercise his half a decade old grievance, knowing that people will start discussing these things as if they had any basis in fact. 

It’s a tactic of throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks.

Edited August 5 by Earl Aelfheah

[first mate]

@Earl Aelfheah said: "So what we have is an individual making stuff up."

Which bits specifically are they making up? That is quite a step from saying you do not believe what someone says. This time you are, once more, accusing others of lying. 

[malumbu]

@exdulwicher

Road users to stop from time to time, I've done it both on push bike and motorbike, usually a domestic where the women is getting grief.  The chap who chased the mobile phone thief on the bike from Forest Hill Road in his van getting the rider to give the phone up a few months ago is a local legend.  Whether it 1%, 10% or more I don't know. 

Post Covid I expect that theft from vans has gone up.  I doubt if it is anything to do with Covid rather, so much more building work going on.  Crime is dependent on numerous factors. I feel totally safe cycling down Court Lane.  As I always have done.  This is a broader discussion on crime, I'm not joining in this debate about the wild west/LTN.

[Earl Aelfheah]

44 minutes ago, first mate said:

Which bits specifically are they making up?

There is no evidence that the filter increased crime. Around 'the square' it has been broadly flat since around 2018, and trending down against to the London average. Research suggests that in general LTNs reduce crime.

There is no evidence of increased road danger. There is data showing a reduction in collisions and serious injuries.

There is no evidence of increased pollution. Local air quality monitoring shows that there have been significant drops in NO2.

When you make unevidenced claims, or claims which run counter to all available evidence, that is a case of just making stuff up. It is no different to me claiming that the traffic filter has made everyone taller and then failing to produce any evidence to back it up when questioned. It is nonsense.

Edited August 5 by Earl Aelfheah

[first mate]

This does seem to boil down to interpretation of statistics; with Rockets citing specifics and Earl broader trends, with Earl carefully referring to 'road danger', but not 'street theft', to make the point that the roads in the area under discussion are safer because there are fewer 'collisions'. Again, I think Rockets was pointing to correlation not causation. The point was made by another poster that the latter would be very hard to prove.

What is not fair is to accuse the other of lying.

Edited August 5 by first mate

[Earl Aelfheah]

1 hour ago, first mate said:

This does seem to boil down to interpretation of statistics; with Rockets citing specifics and Earl broader trends, with Earl carefully referring to 'road danger', but not 'street theft', to make the point that the roads in the area under discussion are safer because there are fewer 'collisions'. Again, I think Rockets was pointing to correlation not causation. The point was made by another poster that the latter would be very hard to prove.

What is not fair is to accuse the other of lying.

This is absolute nonsense. I have supplied a link to crime data for the area in question and a comparison to the London average. Around the square crime has been broadly flat since around 2018, and trending down against to the London average. This also aligns with high quality research which suggests that in general LTNs reduce crime.

Rockets has not provided any evidence at all, that there has been a disproportionate rise in any type of crime as a result of the filter. He has provided partial data on a few hand picked crime types, for the whole of Dulwich, with no context or reference to background trends.

He has provided no evidence of his other claims either, concerning pollution or pedestrian injuries. Absolutely zero. I have provided links to official data that show the exact opposite to what he has claimed.

If I say that average earnings have increased as a result of a cheese shop opening, and then provide some patchy pay data for the whole of Dulwich Village, with no comparator data linking it to background trends across London or anything linking it to the cheese shop in any way, that is not evidence of my claim. It is an irrelevance. It's just making stuff up and kicking up dust in the hope that people take the use of some random numbers as 'statistic-y' / don't notice. 

It is not a case of 'interpretation of statistics'. Rockets has offered no relevant data to back up his claims.

 

Edited August 5 by Earl Aelfheah

[HeadNun]

35 minutes ago, first mate said:

This does seem to boil down to interpretation of statistics; with Rockets citing specifics and Earl broader trends, with Earl carefully referring to 'road danger', but not 'street theft', to make the point that the roads in the area under discussion are safer because there are fewer 'collisions'. Again, I think Rockets was pointing to correlation not causation. The point was made by another poster that the latter would be very hard to prove.

What is not fair is to accuse the other of lying.

I agree. @Rockets may well be completely wrong about the increase of crime in LTNs, but to accuse him of inventing what the PSCO said to him, without any proof, is a tad unpleasant. He's already suffered another unfounded accusation on here.

It could well be that the PSCO was completely wrong (maybe he's opposed to LTNs too 😆) or that he was just speculating, who knows. But I don't doubt that it was said. 

[Earl Aelfheah]

Putting aside what a PCSO may or may not have said to Rockets, he himself has made several claims around pollution, safety and crime which he has provided no evidence for and / or are demonstrably false.

There is no evidence that the filter increased crime. Around the square crime has been broadly flat since 2018, and trended down against the London average

There is no evidence of increased road danger. Data shows a reduction in collisions and serious injuries.

There is no evidence of increased pollution. Local air quality monitoring demonstrates there to have been significant falls in NO2.

I don't think it's reasonable to just make stuff up. If you do, repeatedly, then it is right for people to treat what you say with scepticism.

Edited August 5 by Earl Aelfheah

[alice]

Well, here I am and I’m going to settle the matter once and for all. apologies for cliche.  I just saw some police officers in Peckham Park and stopped to speak to them to ask if they were just there as part of their usual patrol or in response to something specific.  it was the former. One officer told me about something called Met engage which I’ve never heard of no doubt readers will have.  It’s a quick way of alerting police to concerns rather than actual crimes but it details what the concerns are in a particular area.  Because of previous posts where people were calling each other liars, I thought I’d look up Dulwich Village and see what the priorities for the police were. If you’re interested, then do so yourself. I found it interesting.

[HeadNun]

I received this email from Met Engage last week. Shame about the rogue apostrophe, but good to see an uptick in bobbies on the beat. 

 

This summer we have been working hard to tackle the crime we see tick up over the warmer months in the busiest areas of London. We want our communities to feel safe going into their town centres, and for them to know we are tackling crimes that matter most to you, like anti-social behaviour, pickpocketing, mobile phone theft and robbery. 

Thanks to our efforts so far in the town centre we have seen:

 

• Theft from person decrease by 26%
• Shoplifting decrease by 39.6% 

At the same time, we are keen to make sure that our busiest areas have the resources they need. Yesterday we announced that we are committing an extra £32m to keep our town centre’s safe.

This will mean a new Town Centre team for Southwark, who will be dedicated to relentlessly targeting prolific offenders as well as being visible and approachable to protect the public and deter criminals. 

[alice]

The town centre they are referring to is Bermondsey way