Girdlestone Estate Safer Spaces

Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB), particularly drug dealing, are key concerns for Girdlestone Estate residents. Islington Council and the Metropolitan Police are working together to tackle these issues and improve safety. While the police lead on drug enforcement, the Council supports through services like the Anti-Social Behaviour Service, Tenancy Team, Estate Services, and Community Safety Team. We also engage with residents and businesses, providing advice and support while addressing environmental improvements. Our ongoing efforts include increased police presence, enforcement actions, outreach patrols, and support for vulnerable individuals. We have created this page to update you on our actions.

Aim

Our aim is to ensure that the residents and visitors of the Girdlestone Estate feel safe regardless of their personal identity, the time of day, or how busy it is.

We know that how safe someone feels can be influenced by many factors – including age, gender expression, disability, race, ethnicity, visible religious affiliation, and expression of sexuality, as well as how dark it is and how many people are outside.

We want residents to feel confident in reporting incidents and in the response they receive. We want you to tell us how you feel and what you would like to see change. We want to know how communities think we should be improving safety and community confidence, how we can better involve and engage communities in our work and how best we can communicate the work we do with you.

Get involved

• Join us at an event to discuss crime and ASB in your area. See the Key Dates section on the right side of this page

What are we doing to tackle crime and ASB?

We are continuing to work hard to reduce crime and anti-social behaviour (ASB) on the Girdlestone Estate, however we appreciate there is more for us to do and thank you for your patience during this time.

We have:

Co-ordinated a partnership meeting: Based on the feedback received during the last TRA meeting, we have co-ordinated the first Girdlestone Estate Partnership Meeting with police, community safety, tenancy, outreach teams and estate services.

We discussed in detail 5 problematic addresses and agreed 17 partnership actions to address the concerns raised. The tenancy officer Joseph Bentley is leading on this part of the work, supported by the Community Safety officer for the area Matthew Bunce.

We also discussed place based hot spot areas and this will inform police patrols, Parkguard patrols and outreach visits. Community Safety are co-ordinating an EVA on Girdlestone Walk on Wednesday 13 August 2025.

Organising a walkabout with the Tenants Residents Association to identify other hot spot locations where further EVA’s will be conducted.

Increased Patrols: Both plain clothes and high visibility patrols by the Safer Neighbourhood Team and specialist police units.

Parkguard and Neighbourhood Patrol officers Support: Parkguard and Neighbourhood Patrol officers have been working with the police team, conducting proactive patrols based on reports from residents.

Providing Support: Engaged with vulnerable residents through joint shifts with outreach, drug, alcohol, and health services teams. There are 8 joint shifts per week between the outreach teams, with more individual shifts occurring each day.

• Visit this page for updates on the actions being taken by the police and council along with other partners on the Girdlestone Estate - the latest update can be seen here.
• Sign up to MET Engage, a new platform set up by the Metropolitan Police Service, where you can get to know your local officers, help shape how they police your local area and have direct access to key information and advice.
• If you want to keep receiving news from us sign up to our Local Updates.(External link)

What can you do?

Report crime and antisocial behaviour

Islington Police and Islington Council take every report of crime and antisocial behaviour seriously. Every report has an impact and allows us to direct resources to areas of high harm.

Drug dealing and drug taking should always be reported to the police as it is a crime and they must investigate. Do not report these issues to the council Anti-Social Behaviour reporting page or on this web page as it will not be investigated.

Report crime

• All crime should be reported to the police. This includes drug dealing, drug taking, theft, abandoned vehicles, aggressive begging and crime taking place within a property
• Report an emergency by phoning 999. An emergency is classified as an immediate risk to life, or likely risk to life
• Report non-urgent crimes by phoning 101 or report online(External link)(External link)

Report anti-social behaviour

• Anti-social behaviour (ASB) covers a wide range of unacceptable activity that causes or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to an individual from another household or to the community, or harm to the environment
• Report antisocial behaviour to Islington Council using the online form(External link). If you do not have access to the internet, you can call 020 7527 7272

Raise concerns about someone sleeping rough

If you are concerned about the wellbeing of someone who is sleeping rough on the streets, call StreetLink on 0300 500 0914 or visit the StreetLink website. This sends an alert to the local outreach team who will visit the location to make contact with the person.

• If you are homeless yourself or worried about becoming homeless contact the council’s Housing Aid Centre on 020 7527 2000
• Visit the Islington Council website for more information about how we support people rough sleeping(External link)

Raise concerns about someone who is unwell

• If you think someone is unwell, phone 999 and ask for an ambulance. This includes if someone has passed out or is heavily under the influence of drugs or alcohol