Wandsworth Council has set out proposals to fund 25 dedicated police officers and establish a borough-wide enforcement team, with formal decisions expected next month.
The police element would comprise 22 constables and three sergeants. The council says it wants the officers to concentrate on priorities identified through resident feedback and local intelligence, rather than being a general addition without a defined local focus. The proposal is not yet an approved service: it is due to be examined by the Enforcement Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 5 October before going to the Cabinet on 12 October.
If the plan is agreed, the council would fund the posts through a Section 92 arrangement with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. Such an arrangement would provide dedicated Metropolitan Police officers for work in the borough. The council has said the officers would address neighbourhood concerns and be part of a more visible local response. The proposals do not mean that additional officers have already been deployed.
The proposal also includes an Integrated Enforcement Team. Rather than operating as a stand-alone police unit, the intended model would bring together council enforcement functions and work alongside the dedicated officers. The stated aim is a coordinated and intelligence-led approach, with resources moved to places where problems are most persistent or where new concerns emerge. The council says the borough-wide model could adapt as local priorities change.
Among the issues identified by the council are anti-social behaviour, drug-related activity, illegal e-bikes and mopeds, environmental crime and other neighbourhood concerns. The authority says intelligence, crime data and resident feedback would be used to identify hotspot locations and guide activity. That means the proposal is framed around targeting rather than a fixed allocation of officers or enforcement staff to each individual area.
The council also says the package would sit alongside its existing community-safety work. This includes the use of CCTV and intelligence-led enforcement to help prevent crime, gather evidence and support investigations. It has said the approach would complement work on violence against women and girls by helping partners identify hotspots, respond to concerns raised by residents and improve safety in public spaces.
The more detailed proposal marks a further step from an announcement made in July, when the council said it intended to seek additional police capacity but had not set out a final number of posts or the proposed composition of the team. The September plans now specify 25 posts, split between constables and sergeants, and add the borough-wide enforcement model. They also set out a route for scrutiny and a subsequent Cabinet decision.
Independent local reporting has also described the proposal as including a council enforcement team and has highlighted that the governance arrangements remain subject to the council’s forthcoming process. The public position at this stage is therefore a proposal for decision, not a confirmation that the officers or the new team are already in place. Any operational arrangements will depend on the outcome of the council’s decision-making process.
Residents will have a clearer indication of the next steps after the scrutiny meeting and the Cabinet decision. Until then, the key point is that Wandsworth is considering a defined package of dedicated officers and integrated enforcement, intended to respond to locally identified problems across the borough.
