The council would pay the Met £3.131m in year one for 22 constables and three sergeants, plus 22 council enforcement officers. Cabinet decides on 12 October.
Wandsworth Council plans to pay for 25 extra Metropolitan Police officers to work only in the borough. The team would be 22 constables and three sergeants. The first officers could be on the streets between January and March 2027.
The council would also set up its own Integrated Enforcement Team, with 22 council enforcement officers working alongside the police. Both plans are in a report to Cabinet, which decides on Monday 12 October. (Wandsworth Council, Paper No. 26-243)
The council announced the plans on 29 September. (Wandsworth Council, 29 September 2026) The report behind the announcement carries the costs, the timetable and the evidence, and that is what this story is built from.
What it costs
The officers would come through a Section 92 agreement with the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. Section 92 of the Police Act 1996 lets a council pay for extra police officers to work on locally agreed priorities.
The Met charges the full cost of each officer. The report gives the rates:
| Role | Number | Charge each | Year one |
|---|---|---|---|
| Police constable | 22 | £123,224 | £2.71m |
| Police sergeant | 3 | £140,151 | £0.42m |
| Police team | 25 | £3.131m |
Those charges rise each year. The agreement would run for at least 12 months, with an option to extend it by a further 24 months.
The council’s own enforcement team would cost an estimated £1.64m in a full year. It would have a head of service, 22 enforcement officers, a data analyst and a small number of technical support staff.
Cabinet is asked to approve extra spending of £300,000 this year and £4.9 million in 2027/28 and each full year after that. The finance director’s comments call this “a maximum envelope of cost”. Equipment, uniform, vehicles and a new base for the team are not all priced yet.
Who pays
The money would come from the Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy, the charge councils take from developers. The report says this year’s spending will be “funded in full” from those receipts.
For later years it is less firm. The costs will come from the levy “where possible”, and the ongoing costs have been built into the council’s Spending Review. That is the same budget exercise behind the council tax rise the council says it will need in 2027.
Who gives the orders
The report gives two descriptions of how the officers would be directed.
- The main report says they will be “deployed, under Council tactical direction”, from a base on the town hall campus.
- The equality assessment attached to the same report says they “would remain under Metropolitan Police command” with full police powers, and that their work “would be informed by locally agreed priorities”.
Both can be true: the Met commands, and the council sets the priorities. The report does not spell out where one ends and the other begins. The agreement with the Mayor’s office will set the terms, and it has not been published.
Why the council says it is needed
The report points to cuts at the Met. Its “Tough Choices” programme has removed around 3,300 officers and staff across London in two years, with more reductions expected.
Confidence in policing has also fallen locally. The Mayor’s Public Attitude Survey, quoted in the report, shows these changes in Wandsworth between April to June 2025 and the same quarter of 2026:
- trust in the Met fell from 80% to 75%
- confidence that police do a good job locally fell from 49% to 45%
- the share who think police treat everyone fairly fell from 62% to 61%
The council’s own Community Safety Survey 2025 found that only about a third of respondents knew how to contact their ward police officer. The safety of women and girls in public spaces and anti-social behaviour were the two priorities picked most often.
Where the officers would go
The report counts 27,049 recorded crimes in Wandsworth between July 2025 and July 2026. Nearly a quarter were in three wards: Tooting Broadway, Wandsworth Town and Balham. Nearly half of all offences were violence or theft.
Anti-social behaviour is more concentrated still. Wandsworth Town, Tooting Broadway and Falconbrook account for about a quarter of recent police demand for it.
The report gives three examples of joint working the new team is meant to make routine:
- St Mary’s Slipway: CCTV linked 16 vehicles to nitrous oxide use, illegal parking and loud music, and DVLA checks were started on their owners.
- Dalebury Road, Upper Tooting: a temporary accommodation property was tackled by housing, planning, police and the fire brigade together, and its occupancy was reduced.
- Putney High Street: an operation against illegal mopeds and e-bikes seized five mopeds and eight e-bikes.
What changes for existing patrols
The council’s other enforcement staff will be reviewed. That review covers all council-funded enforcement, including the Parks and Events Police.
The Balham Wardens were set up as a six-month pilot under the previous administration. The report says the new team will build on what was learned there, in a borough-wide model. The report also funds a long-standing domestic abuse advocate post that until now has relied on grants.
What it means for you
- Nothing changes yet. Cabinet decides on 12 October, and the Met then has to recruit, vet and deploy the officers. The report’s “early indications” point to January to March 2027.
- The officers are extra. The report says they “add capacity rather than replace existing policing”.
- You can watch the scrutiny meeting. The Enforcement Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee looks at the plan first, at 7.30pm on Monday 5 October. Agendas and papers are on the council’s democracy site.
- Report a crime the usual way. Call 999 in an emergency or 101 otherwise. Report anti-social behaviour to the council or the police; the new team is meant to act on those reports.
Sources
- Investing in Dedicated Police Officers and an Integrated Enforcement Team, Paper No. 26-243 (Wandsworth Council, 25 September 2026), including its equality assessment and two appendices, for every cost, date, figure and example above.
- Enforcement Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee, 5 October 2026 (Wandsworth Council) for the meeting time.
- Proposed plans unveiled to boost neighbourhood policing and enforcement in Wandsworth (Wandsworth Council, 29 September 2026) for the announcement.
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