Kingston Police will get the smallest share in London of extra government funding to tackle drugs and street crime.

Of the £20 million extra nationwide and £8.9 million in London, Kingston will get just £107,000 of the Communities Against Drugs funding.

The money is part of a three year initiative to allocate £220 million to police forces all over the country.

Last year £50 million was shared out, with £7.5 million going to London. All forces will get the same share of that again this year but the extra £20 million will help particularly troubled areas.

Neighbours Sutton and Richmond also got relatively little with £133,000 and £140,000 respectively, although both had fewer drug-related offences.

According to figures produced by the Performance Information Bureau of the Met Police in April, there were 505 drug-related offences in Kingston, compared with 253 in Richmond and 294 in Sutton in 2001.

But as Kingston is one of the smallest boroughs with the second lowest crime rate in London, the news is no surprise to the police, who are constantly near the bottom of the list when it comes to handouts.

Superintendent Angela List said: "It is done on the size of the borough and population.

"We are just grateful that the government has given an allocation of money and our main aim now is to make sure it is used efficiently, with an emphasis on detection and prevention."

Other boroughs, such as Lambeth which has softened its stance on soft drugs, have been earmarked more than £300,000 to stem the growing tide of incidents.

All the money will be concentrated on community-backed initiatives and is bid for by individual agencies before being handed out.

Supt List said: "Last year we met the targets set by the Met Police and this year we hope for similar success. We are already guaranteeing to execute a search warrant once every 10 days.

"We realise that drugs are a big concern for the community and that is probably why Kingston has such a high arrest rate."

July 8, 2002 16:30