There's been an understandable media furore around Form 696, which is used by the Metropolitan police as a risk assessment of gigs and club events in London, given that initial drafts deemed it "potentially racist", what with its penchant for knowledge of all things black and Asian-related.

Yesterday, many of us started premature celebrations when word trickled through that Scotland Yard had bowed to growing pressure from the entertainment industry and revised the form, no longer requesting a music genre to be specified. Previously the form gave as options such as "bashment, R&B, garage" – genres popular with black and Asian communities.

While it would be all too easy to sit back and relish this small victory, this latest move from Scotland Yard has been described as an "exercise in semantics" by Feargal Sharkey, chief executive at UK Music, who's been instrumental in the campaign to shred Form 696, and rightly so.

No experimentation with a dictionary changes the essence of the police stance on tackling any plausible link between music and violence. No piece of paper is going to cover the cracks in our society. The problem is much deeper-rooted than the BPM of a record.

Any problem you're unfortunate enough to encounter of an evening is just as likely to occur in broad daylight. Do I feel safer opting for an event in Angel as opposed to a night in Elephant & Castle? No. The reality is that inner-city life is no bed of roses.

Whether you're into hip-hop, grime, rock or bhangra, the thought of getting mugged, stabbed or shot is no longer alien territory.

Having spent a decade enjoying what the capital has to offer, as well as putting on club nights, I'm all too aware of how a good night can turn ugly. No amount of form-filling and checking of DJs' addresses is going to change that.

Rumours of a so-called "black list" of promoters, acts, their associates and their followers is nothing new. Four years ago, when we were packing venues with punters who wanted to get acquainted with relatively unknown MCs and grime sounds, the police wanted to know details of performers and asked the owner for notification of any "change in music policy". Despite a crowd that married Shoreditch fashionistas with Hoxton rude boys, six sold-out events and no trouble, such police intervention was the nail in our coffin.

But some of those same MCs have gone on to enjoy chart success – Tinchy Stryder is currently the bestselling UK male artist of the year with 900,000 sales, while Dizzee Rascal can boast three consecutive No 1s . Without the opportunity to grow on your own doorstep, what chance is there for the fans and artists alike to support homegrown music?

We need to face reality. There's too much paperwork in the world.

What we need is a clubland coalition. An end to the "us and them" mentality we've adopted around this issue. A good old chinwag with Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Martin, the head of the Yard's clubs and vice unit, wouldn't go amiss. Let's tell each other how it really is. Open the channels of communication. "Working together for a safer London", right Chief?