WALTHAM Forest Council has been honoured for work to create a safer borough.

the authority received the Suzy Lamplugh Trust Safer Community Award for initiatives including introducing weapon scanners in schools and reducing anti-social behaviour over Halloween.

Waltham Forest Council’s cabinet member for community safety, enforcement and protection, Cllr Afzal Akram, said: "This award is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the council's community safety team and our partners such as the police who are endlessly striving to keep our residents safer.

"We have had some fantastic successes in this field over the last year, but we know there are significant challenges we still need to address and that is why we will continue to lobby the mayor of London, as chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, for the extra 120 police we believe we need to tackle the disproportionate levels of serious crime in this borough."

The council's campaign against anti-social behaviour at Halloween, resulted in a 43 per cent drop in disorder during that period.

Every secondary school pupil in Waltham Forest has passed through a weapon scanner either before or after classes. Since the programme was introduced, there have been no weapons found and no assaults with weapons in schools, a council spokesman said.