With knife crime on the increase across London, safety is a concern for many Londoners.

Ahead of Thursday’s (December 12) election we spoke to the candidates of the main two parties in Croydon Central about how they would increase safety and reduce crime in the constituency.

The constituency covers the town centre ward of Fairfield which has the highest crime rate in Croydon.

Between November 2018 and October 2019 there were more than 6,000 crimes reported to the police in Fairfield.

Of these 1,411 were anti social behaviour and 1,365 were for violence and sexual offences.

Labour’s Sarah Jones who is standing for re-election in the constituency thinks there are three areas that need to be addressed to tackle crime.

She wants to see more police on the streets, preventative measures to battle knife crime like more youth clubs and thirdly intervening with vulnerable young people before they turn to crime.

“We have had devastating cuts to policing and there have been thousands of youth clubs cut across the country,” said Sarah.

“Funding for youth services have been cut by 40 per cent and we’ve lost premises and youth workers.

“We have to be intervening better with young people who are at risk or involved with these things already.”

She added that the number of crimes in Croydon have been coming down since the introduction of the Violence Reduction Network – this takes a public health approach to knife crime and serious violence.

Sarah said: “Although it is great that the borough command unit has put more police in the centre there are still problems.

“I went out with police in Fairfield and we spent a lot of time dealing with non police issues like people with mental health problems who should be getting treatment somewhere. But the police end up picking up the pieces.”

And the politician said she recently witnessed someone wielding a knife in Shirley which she reported to the police.

Despite this, she thinks that Croydon is a safe place to be and the perception of crime sometimes is not true.

She added: “A small number of people are involved which we have to tackle but the vast majority of people have nothing to do with knife crime. It is important that people don’t feel that they can’t go out on the streets.”

In 2017 Sarah won the seat from the previous Conservative MP, Gavin Barwell, with 29,873 votes to 24,221.

Croydon councillor Mario Creatura has hopes of winning the seat back for the Conservatives.

He described increases in serious violence across the capital as “deeply worrying”.

He said that 20,000 new police officers are being trained which will see more police on the streets.

And added that a £500,000 youth investment fund which was announced at the Conservative party conference in October will mean more youth centres can be built.

“We’ve seen Legacy Youth Zone which is great but the problem with that is if you’re in New Addington you’re not going to go to Thornton Heath for it,” said Mario about the youth centre which opened in Whitehorse Road earlier this year.

“Building a brilliant centre is great for people who live in one area but that youth investment funding is so councils can use some of that cash in other areas.

“There is a huge amount of community groups and activities that already exist and one of the things I would love to do if I got elected for my home town would be to act as a conduit in the community to tell residents what’s out there.”

With crime still high in Fairfield, Mario thinks reigniting the nighttime economy and town centre would increase safety.

He said: “It is undeniably true that there is a perception of crime in the town centre.

“I think it is because it has been stagnating economically. If you had a lot of people and businesses thriving there would be less cause for people to be worried.”

He thinks reducing business rates of empty shops for a ‘meanwhile use’ would make the town centre busier and less of a target for criminals.

But like Sarah he wants people to feel safe in Croydon.

“The data is very clear that knife crime has gone down. I want to focus on trying to address people’s fears where they are not accurate and bring positivity to Croydon.”

In Croydon Central there are a total of five candidates standing.

Esther Sutton of the Green Party, Luke Sprague of the Lib Dems and Peter Sonnex of the Brexit Party will go up against the Labour and Conservative candidates.

The constituency is one of three in the borough and, as the name suggests covers the town centre up to some parts of South Norwood.

While Croydon overall voted against Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum, in Croydon Central just over 50 per cent voted in favour of leaving the European Union.