Saturday saw the publication of the latest crime statistics in Edinburgh. The stats showed a 5% fall in Crime levels. This is to be greatly welcomed and comes on the back of the 21% fall in crime since I took over as Convenor of the Edinburgh Community Safety Partnership.
Much of this fall is down to the changes in policing introduced over the last five years, to the very close partnership working between local council officers and police, good information sharing protocols nipping many problems in the bud before they spiral out of control.
Two things threaten this. The first is Police centralisation by the SNP government. I am concerned that local policing priorities will be set centrally and we will have a Glasgow style of policing introduced.
The second is the Labour council manifesto promise to introduce a centralised antisocial behaviour unit at the council. This had been tried in the past. It didn't work so it was scrapped and we moved to the decentralised approach which has worked so well since we came to power.
The choice is stark on May the 3rd. Labours back to the future plan with the resulting rise in crime and antisocial behaviour or the Lib Dems highly successful community based approach which has delivered lower crime and antisocial behaviour levels in the city. I know which I would choose!
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