The council has pledged to crack down on crime following a recent spike in youth violence in the borough.

A £100,000 package of measures has been unveiled to give youngsters a chance to take part in a range of activities during the summer holiday period, including football, boxing, horticulture and cookery sessions.

Most of the sessions will be open to all young people in the borough, alongside school staff and other professionals who work with youngsters.

The latest figures showed a 17 per cent jump in youth violence in Enfield in the 12 months to May 2018 – and there are fears this could rise further during the school holidays.

Council leader Cllr Nesil Caliskan said the measures were about “responding to a current crisis”.

She said: “I am genuinely worried about the summer holidays. The £100,000 is a recognition of the summer holidays being a really worrying time for families – and also for young people as well.”

Cllr Caliskan added that the council would be targeting young people who have been identified by schools and social workers as being at risk of crime.

Last year, Enfield had the third-highest rate of serious youth violence in London.

The recent increase came after £600 million-worth of cutbacks to Metropolitan Police funding between 2010 and 2017.

These cutbacks led to the closure of Enfield Town and Southgate Police Stations in 2017, leaving Edmonton Green Police Station as the only remaining station in the borough.

Cllr Caliskan is working with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, the deputy mayor of policing and the Met Police, and lobbying the Government for a greater police presence on the streets during the summer months.

She said the council had already helped to fund 16 additional police officers through a match funding scheme with the Met Police.

But she described the current police recruitment situation as “a real challenge”.

She said: “Having spoken to the borough commander, the challenge is – because there are so many vacancies in the police force – as people are being recruited, they are having to backfill. That is a problem for Enfield.

“There is nothing like seeing a good, old-fashioned police officer – it is not just a feelgood. Police tell us over and over again that soft intelligence is gathered through that kind of policing.”

The council – which has also been forced to make deep budget cuts due to government austerity measures – is also lobbying the mayor of London for an extra £500,000 per year over the next three years to tackle youth crime and anti-social behaviour.

Other measures put in place to tackle the problem include the roll-out of 800 CCTV cameras across the borough, outreach programmes and an initiative to reduce gang violence, the Gangs Partnership Group.

Cllr Caliskan added that she recognised long-term measures to tackle social inequality were ultimately the most effective way of reducing crime.

But she said the council needed to act in the short-term to address residents’ concerns.

The council will also hold a public meeting in Edmonton on Saturday, July 28, which people from the whole borough will be able to attend to raise their concerns about crime.