SUMMER JACOBS
House robberies have dropped 30 percent in Table View, according to Table View station commander Colonel Dirk Vosloo, who spoke at a community police forum(CPF) meeting late last month.
About 50 people, including neighbourhood watch and CPF members, attended the meeting at CBC St John’s Parklands.
“The most significant change we’ve seen and that we’re happy about is a decrease in house robberies in the vicinity by about 30 percent.
“There has also been a small decrease in street robberies and that’s thanks to good co-operation from private security companies and neighbourhood watches,” said Colonel Vosloo.
While burglaries remained a problem, he said the police, street committees and neighbourhood watches were doing a good job tackling them.
“We don’t know how many dwellings we have in the area, but if we work on an average of 85 000 houses with 4.5 people per house, then the number of burglaries is not that high. We think it sounds a lot to say we had 65 burglaries for the month, but it’s not when you consider the number of dwellings. The potential is just high for more houses to be burgled,” he said.
Homelessness in the Table View area was also fingered as a “massive issue”.
“This is a difficult one because being homeless is not a crime. There is a fine line between human rights and the rights of property owners,” he said.
There were several questions from the floor about the homeless One person asked what action they should take if a homeless person set up a camp in their street. Another wanted to know if there was a link between homelessness and crime.
Colonel Vosloo said the licence plate recognition (LPR) project set up by the City of Cape Town last year was working well, and another camera project would soon be introduced by the Parklands Homeowners’ Association (PHOA).
The new camera project would see a camera set up on the corner of Dartford Drive and Parklands Main Road and another close to the railway line where a new complex was being built.
Colonel Vosloo said informers were vital to solving crimes, and he mentioned that he had recently approved two claims, each for R6000, for information police had received on an assault case they had been working on for a few months.
“One account of the police where there will always be money available is for informers. That account is never empty. People must come forward with information. It’s strictly anonymous; not even I know who they are, only the investigating officers involved in the case,” said Colonel Vosloo.