Streets of New York safer than London, says Mayor

The streets of New York feel safer than those of London, Ken Livingstone admitted yesterday. The Mayor of London said levels of street crime in the capital were "unacceptably high" but the fear of crime was still higher.

He said police had only now managed to cut street crime to its level before 11 September, when a crimewave followed the diversion of police to the city centre because of the terrorist attacks on America.

Mr Livingstone said: "I do feel safe in London, but I do not feel as safe as I did when I went to New York.

"You have had eight years of real bearing down on crime and eight years of zero-tolerance policing, which has cut crime.

"Clearly the murder rate is different in New York because of their gun laws, but in terms of street crime we have a way to go to catch up with New York," Mr Livingstone said.

He added: "I think there are two problems. The real level of crime is unacceptable and the fear of crime, which is much higher.

"There was a huge increase in street crime immediately following 11 September and we are now back down to where we were before it happened."

Mr Livingstone said he was on course to meet his pledge to increase police numbers in London to 28,000 by next March, one year early.

Targets were now being revised to ensure that the number of police officers in London reached 35,000 within the next four to five years, he said.

Five hundred police support officers were being recruited and the Metropolitan Police was working to expand the police presence on London buses.

Mr Livingstone suggested that his £200m scheme to make motorists in central London pay a congestion charge would create severe traffic problems for two months after it is introduced in February.

Holding the first in a series of weekly presidential-style press conferences, the Mayor said that the first two months of the scheme would be "very difficult".

He added: "At the end of that two months if it clearly wasn't working we would know. By the end of the Easter break if it wasn't working by then I think we would have to say it would have to be pulled."

Motorists will have to pay £5 to enter central London, in a plan to cut traffic by 15 per cent.