HIGHGATE residents are backing the campaign to have Highgate police station reopened.

Both the Liberal Democrat and Conservative councillors are pressing for action and last month Conservative Party leader Cllr Peter Forrest sent a petition to all 5,500 residents of the area, encouraging them to push for more police in the neighbourhood.

Cllr Forrest said: "We are calling for the re-opening of Highgate police station, which has been closed for about 18 months."

The station was closed because of financial constraints and resources were redeployed elsewhere.

The Haringey Independent this week talked to a Highgate burglary victim who is desperate for the profile of the police to be raised in Haringey.

In October 2001, Sue Levine, of Sheldon Avenue, was shocked to get back from a school parents' evening to find that a man had climbed into her son's bedroom through an open window. Her babysitter had spotted him before he had a chance to take anything, but the experience has left her son traumatised.

Mrs Levine said: "My son was petrified and even now he doesn't like to go into the bedroom on his own. He is only 11 and it is just the fact that there was someone in his room."

She added her voice to the calls for the re-opening of the police station in Bishops Road, and said: "We pay some of the highest taxes in London and we have no police service at all. I think we have a right to at least one policeman."

She added: "There are loads of issues. There are lots of police in central London on anti-terrorism duty, and in high-crime areas like Tottenham and Wood Green. When calls to the police come in from those areas, we take the back seat."

On the night of the attempted burglary, the police are alleged to have taken half an hour to arrive at her address.

A spokesman for Haringey police said: "Police have to look at the areas that suffer most from crime and all resources are then split and delegated accordingly.

"We have to put more police in areas such as Wood Green and Tottenham."