To not feel safe in London anymore?

[CecileDeBumblechat]

I have lived in London since the age of 18 and in our current area of SE London for a decade now.

I've always felt like we were lucky to live here, safe, very friendly, nice parks etc.

Our DC go to an amazing school, and are very happy kids, with lots of opportunities to do different activities etc. They have loads of friends, as do me and DH, and I love the area. We are planning to move early next year into a bigger place locally (we need more space) and the plan was to stay put at least until the kids have left home.

However in the past year or two I have felt a real shift in how safe I feel in the area, and the amount of incidents that have happened seem to have escalated dramatically. I'm not sure whether part of this is down to local groups on social media and knowing more about what's happened (rather than being blissfully unaware), but I'm starting to get concerned and wondering if staying in the area is actually the right thing to do for our DC?

I'll summarise what's happened (and I've NC as this is potentially outing to me and to the area I live in).

• There is a sex attacker targeting school children on the loose in the wider area - I've heard of the most recent incident very locally this morning (seems to be groping/intimidation and nothing more serious - yet). We have received letters in school bags about it, and asking us to make sure children walk in groups and are vigilant. My DC are not old enough to walk along yet, but the eldest will be starting next year.
• There has been a gang attacking people after dark in streets very close to us - muggings, some burglaries by the sounds of it and one person was attacked on their doorstep. There is an alley I would walk down frequently to get to friends house, doctors etc which now i feel I have to avoid.
• There is a moped gang covering the whole of the SE of London, targetting eldery asian women to get thei jewellery (this has been widely covered). They attacked the grandmother of a girl at my DC school right outside the school at pickup time :( MY DD is aware of this because it happend whilst she was at school.
• I've had a nutter try to get into my car stopped at traffic lights round the corner from my house about 6 months ago. Luckily my door was locked. A few weeks ago in exactly the same place, a guy of the same description tried to open the door of another local mum (also had door locked thankfully).
• There has been a noticible increase in homeless people in the area (which I think has happened around the country). Whilst I am obviously concerned that so many people are ending up in these dire circumstances, there are certain places that people are begging that feel quite intimidating (ie blocking the entrance to shops whilst also drinking). Police intervention doesn't seem to have helped. A few weeks ago a drunk/drugged up man lay down outside our front window and was ranting/swearing/shouting for the entire night. It was very scary and intimidating (shouting racial abuse etc - I thought there was two of them for quite a while until we realised he was basically talking to himself). We called the police who were apparently on their way - they never turned up.

I don't want to leave our friends, the school, the localy community and more importantly the place we call home. However I now feel scared, and I am worried about my DC in the area espcially as they grow older and want more independence.

Part of me doesn't want to let the bastards win, part of me thinks this could all get worse (with police cuts etc) and we should really think seriously before we commit ourselves with the new house.

AIBU? Should we really consider leaving for some rural idyll or am I kidding myself and this could all happen anywhere?

Some of your concerns sound familiar and I'm not within 100 miles of London. Some of these issues are pretty ancient too. Locking doors against car-jacking was a thing 20+ years ago, although seems to be having a revival. Perverts near schools even longer.

I agree about austerity and city centres getting more run down. In recent years the local "High Street" has become an obstacle course of Black Mamba "Zombies" and foul mouthed drunks verbally abusing each other. It's not entirely new behaviour, and I think some of it is more obvious because it's relocated from peripheral areas which are being redeveloped. Genuine rises in street sleeping homeless people have been accompanied by professional beggars (according to the local news reports of court cases). My sense of feeling safe in the city centre has gone down as I have a low level fear of the behaviour of people off their heads on drink and drugs, and I'm not comfortable about being asked for change as I'm putting money in the car park machine etc.
I doubt such changes are exclusive to where I live.

If you're considering commuting I used to live in Harpenden near St Albans. Its on the Thameslink so trains go straight into St Pancras/Farrington/City Thameslink if that helps. Lovely area with lots of greenery. Worth a look maybe (North of London though).

I also looked in Bromley which was very nice.

I can assure you that there are no gangs in many parts.

Where?

Astounded I get what you are saying, however my concern is more with how things are changing. I felt like you do about your area until recently. It’s horrible to feel like the place you live and love is becoming less safe. There’s nothing particular about our area that makes it more susceptible to what’s happening (I don’t think?).

If you started to hear of more incidents close to you would it concern you? Would you accept it as part of city life or would you think you needed to move to another part of London (which could also change?).

As I’m sure that austerity/police cuts are partly the cause, are things going to get better? If not, should I mitigate this by moving somewhere ‘safer’?

Dh and l lived in central London for almost 10 yrs, pre DC and were happy there....but we were never happy to bring up children in London...

We now live in Home counties, so its easy to visit for the cultural activities and school trips to the museums, galleries etc,
but our dc also have a big garden, dog, country walks, canalside cycling, less pollution ...we think its the best of both worlds...and safer.

Whilst in London l was mugged, had bricks through windows 3 times, car broken in to, flat burgled...and that was in a supposedly 'nice area'!
The thought of my children growing up in London was just not an option.

OP I lived in London for 30 years, moved away 20 years ago.

Sex attackers are nothing new - I saw my first flasher when I was 11.
Same with carjacking, that's not new either.
I lived in a nice area, yet not 10 min walk from our house a bank clerk was shot dead, this must be 40 years ago or thereabouts.
Homeless people - the numbers do come & go depending on how long there has been a Tory government.

Please don't think I am minimising your fears - I completely understand how vulnerable a person can feel, especially when worried about your children, but I do think that much of this seems worse than it was as we now are aware of so much more thanks to fb & the like. It's always been a dodgy place with so many people cooped up in a relatively small space, and with such glaring inequality on show.

That being said, if it's bothering you then you could consider moving away. Be careful though that you don't just run away from London - you need to be running TO a place to make it a positive experience.

Squiggly - interesting you say you think the area is less scary! I’m sure these feelings will fade and I’ll carry on loving the area too. It’s just the series of reports plus incidents that have happened to me are becoming draining.
We have to make a housing decision next year and so it’s out everything into sharp focus.
I know I would miss our area, the school and our friends so so much if we left.

Thetemptation - you are so right about having somewhere to run TO

We’ve flirted with the idea of leaving before (the conversations I think most Londonders have at some point) but there has never been an obvious place to go. London always won.

I grew up in villages/suburbs/small towns and was bored rigid (and flashed at/bullied/had friends who were burgled etc). I moved to London (north/east, fairly naice area generally but bordering on some pretty deprived parts) as a young adult and finally felt that here was life. So I totally recognise that I am biased, and probably predisposed by character and upbringing to liking cities. I also don't have children.

I see some of the things you mention (homeless people/street begging has increased in my area in the past few years; an acid moped gang have attacked a few people etc); but I still think London is a wonderful place to live and to bring up children (I know lots of people who have done/are raising families here), for all the reasons PPs have mentioned.

And, as someone says, it's the people in it who make your home and your life. If you feel that you have a strong community and friendships, they are worth hanging on to IMO.

YANBU. We are moving out of London for similar reasons.
I'm not sure whether it was the mutilated dead cats that had been used as bait for dog-fights left for the children to see, the bag of guns and drugs found behind our garages, the woman who was stabbed in the phone-box at the top of our road, the woman who was decapitated with a machete half-a-mile away, being woken up at two in the morning by an armed response team with guns pointed at me instead of the next-door-neighbours, or the teenager raped and held hostage in the park next door to our house that tipped me over the edge. But I know for sure that I don't want to live here anymore.

Call me unreasonable if you like, but I can have a detached house with a proper garden and an extra bedroom or two where we're going for the sale price of our house. I think i'd be insane to stay.

Thetemptation speaks wise words.

The trouble is that when you become sensitized to something like crime, you register more stories about it, which heightens the anxiety. It's an upwards spiral. I am feeling this myself, as there have been a spate of burglaries in my (not London) neighbourhood. It's easy to start startling at shadows.

More widely, I think we are living in times of heightened inequality, polarisation, and rising and often misplaced hatred as to the causes of great social miseries. I am not sure there is anywhere that is exempt from it. Of course, the effects aren't geographically uniform- some places are being affected more deeply and quickly than others. But I'm not sure the changes are something any of us can get away from entirely by moving house, at least not in the long term. We need to look after each other. Maybe you can reconnect with your community in some way to heal the way you feel about this - it can be surprisingly therapeutic to do a bit of volunteering or even just to attend a well-run community day for something.

I was a Londoner all my life. Moved out recently.

Things that haven't changed

1. I was mugged 30 years ago in Brixton! Never since.

Things I know that have changed

1. London more crowded.
2. More gangs. When I went to school in London 4 decades ago schoolboy gangs were virtually unheard of. Most secondary school boys in most boroughs (except the most exclusive areas) will know about gangs now, and know members of gangs personally. This is also celebrated and documented in rap culture unfortunately. I f-ing hate it, but its everywhere. What happened ?

However, I moved out to seaside area where there's lots of drug addiction and serious deprivation, the kind I never saw in London.

Towns and cities (Especially London) are not safe. I have never felt safe in London.

The overcrowding, freely available weapons and high crime rates, coupled with reducing police presence is a recipe for disaster.

On top of that, in the event of any national crisis, EMP, war disease outbreak etc the almost immediate breakdown of civil society anc the subsequent unrest means the chances of survival in a urban environment are slim to none.

It's social media that makes you feel more insecure - totally agree - every crime seems to be reported on some local forum virtually as it happens, and it does give one a distorted view of reality.

DC1 (a teenager) very risk averse going around and about though, and always has been, although brought up in London - always on the look out for potential danger and keen to avoid being in the orbit of 'road men' at any cost.

I'm in London and don't think YABU. London has changed over the last few years. It feels grimier and seedier and more violent. There was always an edginess, but it feels like a different sort of edginess, there seems to be more despair mixed in. It's also not so easy to make something of yourself here these days because of ridiculous rents and house prices which eat up most people's wages.

I love London, but I'm moving out.

when you become sensitized to something like crime, you register more stories about it

whisky, I think that's very wise and well said. And it's so easy to forget just how much more information there is now compared to even relatively recent times.

Terrible things have always happened, it's just that it's easier now to hear about more of them.

I also agree that things like fear and hatred become self-perpetuating if you're not careful.

OP - to be honest it does sound like we live in a similar part of the world. If genuinely you feel unsafe then you should move out.

Posters saying that no one in their right mind would raise children in London - I'm just not sure what you base that on? the whole of greater London is not one massive seething pit of crime and violence!

London has great schools, great cultural facilities and lots of green space. It also has great public transport which enables kids to be independent far earlier than their country counterparts.

For every family who do choose to move out down the trainline into kent/Surrey etc - there are lots that actively choose to stay.

We live in a lovely part of west London (zone 2). None of the things you describe happen here. It is really an idyllic place to raise children, but with all the appeal of living in an amazing city. It is not cheap, especially if you’re in the market for a larger house, but if you can make that part work it beats the suburbs by a mile.

Ali - im fairly certain we won’t be able to afford anywhere zone 2 West London! It does sound lovely where you live.

I hear what you are all saying about social media. But some of this has happened to me, and some to people I know, plus the incident to my DDs grandmother. This is combined with greater knowledge of other incidents due to local groups on SM which has probably led to the feeling of a huge escalation.

The whole point is I don’t WANT to move out, but I am scared that this is going to get worse (not just here but everywhere). As the option of moving to a more expensive and lovely sounding area of London is not open to us, my choice is stay here and try to stop my anxiety, or find somewhere else to move that isn’t immediately apparent because I can’t think of anywhere else I want to live.

I don't think social media helps as it brings to our attention things we would have been blissfully unaware of previously

Sorry my DDs friend’s grandmother

Gerdaloves I strongly suspect we lived in the same area. Was going to mention the decapitation but didn’t. We were about 2 miles from there and I grew up there. It really is bad now isn’t it?

streetlife70s I used to love it, (and I've lived in North London all my life) but now it really is just grim. That's not my perception being manipulated by social media, that's first hand reality :-(

Blissfully unaware doesn't make it any safer...

Sad to say but also in this day and age you have to consider terrorism and London is always going to be a prime target.

Oddmanout strangely the thing that worries me least is terrorism. That is one thing I definitely wouldn’t want the bastards to win on! I say that as someone who has been fairly close by to both 7/7 (ie on an adjacent tube at the time!) and to the more recent attacks. They have never made me feel unsafe.

Not sure whether that’s logical mind!