Westminster City Council's new Conservative administration is delivering on its commitment to safe streets, with a series of enforcement actions taken since winning power on 7 May.
Cllr Caroline Sargent has been appointed as the first-ever Cabinet Member for Enforcement at Westminster City Council, with clear accountability for delivery across every enforcement function the council controls. Under the previous Labour administration, enforcement was nowhere to be seen. That has changed.
Tackling phone theft
Westminster suffers more phone theft than anywhere else in the country. After years of Conservative pressure, and with a Conservative-led council now driving safe streets as its defining priority, the Metropolitan Police and Apple have struck a landmark deal to make stolen phones worthless to criminals. Samsung and Google are following suit. Stolen devices can no longer be reactivated or resold, breaking the criminal business model that too many people in Westminster have suffered from.
Action on counterfeit goods and illegal traders
Conservative-led Westminster City Council welcomed trading standards teams this week as they confiscated £5,000 of counterfeit designer goods and illegal vapes from Westminster's high streets, where Labour allowed fake goods emporiums and illegal vape shops to spread unchallenged. The council is now working with HMRC to go after the shell companies and supply chains behind these operations.
Cllr Swaddle has written directly to the Director General of the National Crime Agency to demand closer collaboration on tackling the organised criminal networks behind Westminster's illegal traders.
Ending the pedicab chaos
Cllr Sargent this week joined Westminster City Council officers and the Metropolitan Police directly on the streets to pull unsafe and rip-off pedicabs off the road. Labour failed to grip this problem for years.
Clamping down on illegal short-term lets
The council has secured an unprecedented high-level meeting with Airbnb to demand cooperation and action in clamping down on the misuse of short-term lets that blight neighbourhoods across Westminster.
Ending the dockless bike chaos
Labour promised over £1 million in fines from dockless bike operators and collected barely £5,000. The new administration is ending that culture of empty threats. A real-time data-sharing partnership has been agreed with Lime, giving the council live visibility into where bikes are parked so enforcement is targeted and effective. A Dockless Summit is confirmed for 21 July to agree on binding parking standards and geofenced no-go zones across all operators.
Cllr Paul Swaddle OBE, Leader of Westminster City Council, said:
"Westminster residents voted for change, and we are delivering it. Safe streets are our number one priority, and every single one of these actions reflects that commitment. Under Labour, enforcement was nobody's job. Under this Conservative administration, it is everyone's job, led by Cllr Sargent with a dedicated enforcement brief to make Westminster’s streets safe again. We promised to end Labour's managed decline. We are delivering on that promise."
Cllr Caroline Sargent, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Enforcement, said:
"The message to those who seek to exploit Westminster's streets is simple: we are coming for you. Whether it is fake goods traders, rip-off pedicab operators, or those that run illegal short-term lets, this administration will use every power available to us and every partner we can bring to bear. This is what real action looks like."
