London Arson Attacks on the Decline
Statistics have shown that arson attacks in London have seen a huge decrease over the past 10 years, dropping by over 80%, according to figures released by the London Fire Brigade.
In 2003/4 fire crews were called out to as many as 22 fires a week, compared to just 215 for the whole of last year. There have been a number of reasons attributed to this decline, not least the increase in scrap metal costs – encouraging motorists to now sell their cars for scrap rather than dump unwanted vehicles on the street. The lack of abandoned cars on the street – which usually serve as prime targets for arson attacks – has contributed greatly to the decline in deliberate fires.
Borough with biggest decrease
Of the overall decrease, the borough of Kensington and Chelsea has seen the largest reduction, with arson incidents dropping by an enormous 94%. Councillor Nicholas Paget-Brown, Leader of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea said “Our twice-weekly domestic rubbish collections and regular street cleaning helps remove materials that people can use to start fires, as does the work our officers do in spotting potential problems and reporting them.”
The London Fire Brigade have initiated several schemes designed to lower the amount of abandoned vehicles left in the street, and also reduce the level of fly tipping. Ron Dobson, London Fire Commissioner said “the Brigade has worked extremely hard over the past 10 years alongside its partners and local councils to make it more difficult than ever for mindless vandals to endanger the lives of Londoners by setting fire to rubbish and vehicles left in our streets”.
London Fire Brigade
The EU set up the ‘End of Life Directive’ in 2005 which required car manufacturers to set up car recycling agencies for free, to recycle vehicles when they came to the end of their useful life. This certainly contributed to the reduction of vehicle fires – down from 9,300 in 2003/4 to just under 2,000 last year.
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