What happened when I met the Prime Minister...

So last week I was fortunate enough to visit number 10 Downing Street to meet David Cameron and Theresa May. We met at the Company office and made our way down to Westminster as a group where after going through security we were shown in through the famous door of number ten for refreshments while we waited for the politicians to arrive.

After some handshakes and pictures outside, we were led upstairs for the discussions to begin.We had a selection of questions that we had put together before the meeting to put to them about crime, transport and women’s safety after dark which opened up into a discussion around the topic.

I personally felt that they were both very quick to refer us back to local council level with most of the topics that we brought up. They kept saying that not everything could be managed from central London and that they couldn’t tell local councils how to designate the money in their individual budgets. However, I personally would like to see the government give local councils more or stricter guidelines about how they spend their budgets with regards to crime, transport and safety measures.

They also kept referring back to the new crime maps. The crime maps are an online reference where you can look up crime statistics for your local area and compare it to other. Whilst this could be a useful tool if you are planning on moving house I find that they are in general more of an point of interest than serving any real benefit. I actually became more worried about being out and about in my local area after seeing the levels of crime reported. I think it is also important to remember that statistics can only show us the crime that we know about which relies on proper reporting and documenting of crimes, which sadly doesn’t always happen.

I think between us we raised some valid issues that I hope the prime minister and home secretary will take on board. They were certainly welcoming and seemed to support what we were trying to do. We can only hope that words will become actions and we will see some results to make the streets safer not just for women but for everyone in out communities. 


You can read the full report of our visit in the April edition of company magazine, out next month.
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