There have been several articles in the news recently declaring that Stratford is the “crime hotspot” of the nation.

Whilst the headlines appear to paint the area in a bad light, I’d like to reassure you that in fact Newham police are working harder than ever to combat the kinds of crimes that were highlighted in the press.

The figures for the past year, which have been mentioned in the news, cover the Olympic Games, which attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors, 12 concerts and anniversary athletic events have recently taken place, with an extra 660,000 people attending.

Due to the high numbers of people visiting the borough, and the way that this has inevitably attracted criminal opportunists, the crime figures will therefore be proportionately higher.

We have had over 47 million visitors to Westfield in the past 12 months, 27 million to the Stratford Centre and over 100 million using Stratford station - those numbers combined make up the entire population of Russia!

Newham police have been and will continue to work closely with Westfield, Newham Council and the Olympic Park venues to ensure that we deal robustly with anti-social behaviour, robberies, shoplifting and theft offences.

We regularly use Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) to deal with prolific shoplifters, we have a “dispersal zone” around the centre of Stratford which prevents gangs of youths congregating, and our dedicated Westfield policing team work hard with the highly trained Westfield security team to keep out regular offenders of the centre.

We also have a new dedicated Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park Safer Neighbourhood Team who take to the streets of Stratford regularly; they are always out and about giving out crime prevention information and advice, and we use a wide variety of social media to keep both residents and visitors to the area safe and informed.

As a result, robbery has fallen by 5 per cent over the past 12 months in Newham, and the Met in general continues to see crime fall in London, with over 45,000 fewer crimes recorded compared to last year - a drop of 5.5 per cent. Across London robbery figures fell by 10.6 per cent and shoplifting is down by 5.7 per cent.

In short, crime in London is at its lowest level for a decade.

You can find our own crime mapping tool at www.maps.met.police.uk, where you can check out what’s going on in your area and monitor our progress as we continue to improve the places where you live, work and stay.