Croydon Council is launching a major crackdown to tackle violence in nine neighbourhoods in the borough.

The authority hopes to solve “the underlying causes” of violence, beginning with identifying the areas most at risk.

The areas are, Norbury, West Thornton (west), West Thornton (east), Broad Green, Thornton Heath, Selhurst, Fairfields, Shrublands and New Addington.

They were chosen using 13 variables, including the number of hate crimes, school exclusions and deliberate fires, and the rates of domestic violence, employment and income deprivation.

A report from the council’s Violence Reduction Network (VRU) will be discussed at a council meeting on Tuesday.

The VRU was set up in 2019 and treats serious youth violence, including knife crime, as a public health issue.

It said: “To tackle the underlying causes of violence, the borough’s Priority Localities Index identifying the nine priority neighbourhoods in Croydon continues to be of vital importance.”

Violence in Croydon has increased consecutively over the past four years. In 2021, Croydon had the largest number of teenage knife-related murders in London.

Five of the 30 teenagers that were killed in the capital happened in Croydon.

The report notes that there has been a “continual reduction” in knife injuries but an increase in the number of knife crime incidents.

The report said this is “being driven by a considerable rise in knife-enabled robbery”.

The network said it will make robberies involving knives a priority over the next year.

It also resolved to focus more on public transport in the borough, the report added: “Especially around bus stops which have been identified as a high risk factor for violence.”

The VRU also said the borough should “refocus its limited resources on the ‘felonious few’, which could lead to an increased chance of crime reduction, particularly those targets which give rise to serious harm.”

It said research shows most crime is committed by a handful of offenders against a small number of victims in a few locations.

The report said: “This approach requires no extra costs and could even possibly reduce overall costs in the medium to long-term due to these persistent high harm targets no longer generating such serious crimes or, better still, no crime at all.”

Croydon’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee will discuss the report at Croydon Town Hall from 6.30pm on Tuesday.