Boris Watch

Boris on the upgraded Shadwell DLR station:

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has hailed a new weapon in his fight to cut crime in the capital - a revamped Docklands Light Railway station.

Crime figures for Shadwell station, in the borough of Tower Hamlets, have dropped since Transport for London transformed its dark and dingy entrance hall into a bright open space.

There has been just one crime at the station since the revamp in May, but there were six crimes there between May and June last year, according to British Transport Police figures.

All jolly spiffing and that, but ‘his’ fight?  The Shadwell scheme has gone through three phases, starting in July 2006 and finishing in April 2008.  In other words it’s entirely a Livingstone era TfL project.  Nice to see the usual complete lack of acknowledgment of this, but reading between the lines ‘Red’ Boris is following exactly the path laid down by ‘Red’ Ken.  Again.  It’s also a wee bit early to be talking about crime being slashed on the basis of two data points - let’s see a bit more, shall we?

[Another snarky point - the Shadwell scheme is predicated on the belief that you can reduce crime by improving the ambience and design of an area.  This is directly opposite to the belief of some on the right that crime is all the fault of nasty little scrotes who should know better.  Anthony Browne, for instance, believes this.  Boris, on the other hand, has talked sensibly in the past about 'designing out crime', which is exactly what TfL did at Shadwell.]

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