The Lewisham Safer Neighbourhood Board (SNB) is an independent forum where communities can meet the police, local authority and other partners, to discuss local policing and other aspects of community safety.
The group has representation on London wide bodies and the Safer Lewisham Partnership, which is the Council’s Community Safety Partnership. SNB Officers have regular meetings with the Borough Commander and are contacted when serious incidents take place.
Board Responsibilities
The Board was set up to monitor and scrutinise the performance of Lewisham Police, including public confidence, victim satisfaction and complaints, to help establish local policing and crime priorities and to provide a critical overview of local policing issues.
The Board aims to Increase public accountability of Lewisham Police by reflecting community interests and concerns, providing an environment to share views and giving Lewisham residents a greater voice with regards to policing, crime and community safety.
The Board also administrates the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime’s (MOPAC) annual grant to Lewisham. Local groups are invited to submit funding bids for projects that will reduce crime and reoffending or focus on engaging and including Lewisham communities that are not involved with the crime and policing agenda, and support them in helping to make their communities safer.
Meetings
The Board meets four times a year, usually at the Civic Suite, but we have been utilising the Microsoft Teams Platform to ensure that we are working in a COVID-safe way. Please look at the events page to find out the details of the next public meeting. Now that restriction have been lifted, we will continue to revisit the safest way in which to deliver these meetings. Each meeting has a guest speaker, who gives a presentation on some aspect of policing or the criminal justice system.
These meetings are open to members of the public and provide a unique opportunity for members of the community to ask questions to the Police and the Safer Communities strand of Lewisham Council.
When necessary we hold special meetings and day conferences on issues deemed to be important to the community.
Please refer to the ‘Special Interest Areas‘ tab of the website to find out more about our meetings.
Board Membership
The Board has six community members, who serve for three years. These are elected annually from a register of affiliated community groups which operate in Lewisham.
The remainder of the board is comprised of representatives from named Lewisham voluntary and statutory organisations who have an interest or work within the criminal justice system.
These organisations include the Stop and Search Monitoring Group, SNT Ward Panels, the Independent Custody Visitors, the Police Independent Advisory Group, the Hate Crime Group, a Councillor, two youth representatives, Victim Support and the Business Community.
Board members attend separate strategy meetings to plan and organise meetings, to select and process applications for grant funding and to monitor successful projects.
Please click here for the Terms of Reference, the Code of Conduct and role description.