Police seized a 'large' kitchen knife after dispersing a gang of youths outside a community centre on the same road as three recent stabbings.

Officers were called to the New Horizon Centre in Pollards Hill just before 10pm on Thursday, November 20, to reports of a group of up to 30 youths drinking and drug-taking.

Police dispersed the gang using anti-social behaviour legislation. After searching the area, officers then discovered the discarded knife.

The incident follows a heated public meeting at the community centre earlier this month where residents and relatives of stab victims urged police to do more to protect them from criminals. 

'They know no-one will punish them' - police questioned over spate of stabbings in Pollards Hill

Three men between the ages of 16 and 20 have been stabbed in South Lodge Avenue since June - the same street where the discarded knife was found.

Referring to Thursday's incident, Merton's top cop Chief Superintendent Stuart Macleod, said: "This was good work from E Team but also a good indicator that we need to continue to be pro-active in this area.

"Now police numbers have improved we have re-formed our Borough Tasking Team and we will be using them to tackle just the sorts of issues that I have described."

The E Team is one of several police teams responding to crime in the borough. Tasking Teams are proactive policing units targeting serious crime including knife crime.

Residents and Mitcham and Morden MP Siobhain McDonagh have raised concerns about seeing less officers patrolling the neighbhourhood since changes to local policing were enforced in June 2013.

London police chief, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe admitted local policing reforms have hampered some criminal investigations at a public meeting in Morden earlier this month.  

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe admits police have lost relationships with community 

He said improvements to the model would be announced by December.