I just read in "Your Camden" (the council’s monthly free magazine) "the news" on Street Wardens at Kings Cross.  Except it is not new.  It is probably the old plan, namely to push forward with the ending of the Kings Cross Street Warden service.  I read, the Council heard the Kings Cross residents comments, presumably from the first Kings Cross Area Forum last year, where huge opposition to the withdrawal of the locally based street wardens was expressed.  Yet whilst they (the council through the voice of
YOUR CAMDEN ) say they apparently listen, they introduced a new schema, that meant exactly the point that was put to the council was being ignored, namely that Kings Cross residents object to the abolition of a Kings Cross based Local Neighbourhood Safety Schema. So whilst grandly announcing that they listened using a full page of the the Your Camden publication, they have done nothing to preserve the old structure.  This can hardly mean that they listened. 

Kings Cross has a huge disproportionate amount of hostels compared to the rest of Camden and it also is exposed by the by-traffic of St Pancras Kings Cross rail stations. Drug trafficking, dealing and drug and other substance abuse in public, prostitution, aggressive begging, and youth gang activities are all known to residents here.  Whilst no body can deny the need for neighbourhood safety teams elsewhere in the borough, it can hardly be right to make savings by withdrawing a well working and appreciated service, or as it may be forcing the ward to share that service with a wide range of other wards.  In a polite way of expressing it, their article in Your Camden is stupefying.
It is perhaps based on the out-dated notions that Kings Cross residents do not a have a voice  to be taken serious. 

The best way to maintain safety in a community is through local policing, with officers who know the area and its problems well. 

– a version of this letter went to Camden New Journal –

Read also:  Street Wardens  Decision Naive (Camden New Journal)
Your Camden