The Safer Neighbourhood Team covering Fareham Town Centre is led by Sergeant Kerry Rudge. This area is primarily made up of commercial shop premises and a small proportion of residential properties.
The rest of the team are:
- PC Janine Sanger
- PC Darren Graham
- PC Sue White
- PC Helen Mann
- PCSO Donna Bidle
- PCSO Graham Stanton
Previously, this team also covered the Fareham East and North areas.
However there have been some changes to this structure reflecting a variation in staffing levels across all of the Safer Neighbourhood Teams.
This will not adversely affect the service you get from your team of officers, it just means that it is now a different Safer Neighbourhood Team that manages the area you live in and who represents the police at your community meetings.
Your local priorities
Locally, we work with your community to find out what matters most where you live. We will work with you and our partner agencies to agree the main priorities for the area and how we will work together to tackle them.
Fareham Town Centre Safer Neighbourhoods main priorities are:
- Graffiti and criminal damage.
- Purse thefts within Fareham town centre.
- Drug use within the town centre.
These are the priorities that people in your local area have agreed with the Safer Neighbourhoods team. You can influence these priorities by contacting your team, attending a meeting or speaking to members of the team when you see them out and about.
Action we have taken in relation to local priorities
We support the local Pubwatch initiative that has the rule that once you are banned from one licensed premises you are banned from all. So far 17 people have been banned from Pubwatch premises.
In conjunction with Fareham Shopping Centre, there is now a Shopwatch scheme in place. Over 20 people have been issued banning notices preventing them from entering the shopping centre for a minimum of 12 months. There is also a radio link scheme in place with over 40 members. This allows police, shopping centre security, individual shops/pubs and the CCTV Control room to liaise directly with each other as incidents are happening.
Following several operations targeting purse thefts, a number of people have been arrested. However, this remains a prominent problem for Fareham Town Centre along with may other town centres across the county. We ask that shoppers remain vigilant and ensure their purses are kept in sealed handbags. It is apparent that elderly women in particular are being targeted whilst in or around charity shops. We have so far distributed more than 2000 lanyards to shoppers. These are coloured pieces of fabric which secure a purse to a handbag so it cannot be removed. We have plenty more of these to give out at forthcoming beat surgeries and at the police station upon request.
We are visiting shops in the town centre to give out advice and lanyards to help prevent purse thefts. We will be at the Post Office in West Street on Monday, January 30 to give these out too.
How you can take action
On every first Thursday of the month a mobile police station is held within the pedestrian precinct in West Street, Fareham. It starts at 10am and finishes at 3pm. Come and tell us what is important to you in your neighbourhood, and play your part in setting local priorities.
You could also volunteer to help the teams working in your local area and make a real difference to your neighbourhood. Click here for more information about police support volunteers.
Crime mapping and local performance information
Hampshire Constabulary has joined with partner agencies in the two counties to provide you with local information about crime and disorder, using a system called CADDIE. On the bottom left hand side of this page, you can enter your postcode into CADDIE to view information about your local area.
You can also view details of how we are performing against certain key criteria in your local area. Click here to see your local performance information.
How to contact us
To contact the team responsible for your local area, call 101 and ask to speak to someone from your local Safer Neighbourhoods team. Alternatively please email fareham.sector@hampshire.pnn.police.uk. If you are calling from outside Hampshire or the Isle of Wight dial 0845 045 45 45.
