Hampshire Constabulary

Last updated on: Thursday, June 9

The Safer Neighbourhoods Team for Odiham is:

From left to right: PCSO Liz Wallace, PC Victoria Bolan and Special Constable Iain Tunstell.

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We are based out of Odiham Police Station.

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.

Your Safer Neighbourhood Team is working with your community to find out what matters most to you where you live. Local beat officers, residents and partner agencies will agree the main priorities for the area and try to find ways of how we will tackle them together.

Quantities of questionnaires were letter dropped and handed out to residents through the summer. These questionnaires asked residents to tell us what they felt the main problems were in the villages and areas they lived in, they also asked for feedback about how effective they felt the police were at dealing with incidents in their area.

The current beat priorities were set, they are as follows: 

• Tackle speeding vehicles through the villages
  
  
• Prevent non-dwelling burglaries to outbuildings, farms and rural businesses
  
  

These have been set by responses that the residents have given us, if you wish to influence these priorities or feel that there are more important issues that are not being dealt with please contact us, or speak to us when we are out patrolling.

Actions we have taken in relation to your priorities

You said: Tackle speeding vehicles through the villages

We did:

Speeding continues to be an issue in and around the village, however, increased visibility has helped to reduce the quantity of traffic driving at excess speed. This is going to take a while to re-educate drivers in our area that speeding is not acceptable, but hopefully with continued vigilance the message will get through. The Roads Policing Unit (RPU) is now visiting the area regularly to conduct speed enforcement with some good results.

You said: Prevent non-dwelling burglaries to outbuildings, farms and rural businesses

We did:

Following a number of operations that have been carried out by police in the rural areas, the number of break ins has decreased in our area. More operations are being organised for the following months to maintain a highly visible presence in the rural areas. Please report any suspicious individuals and vehicles to police as this helps us to know where and who to target and build a pattern of behaviours for potential offenders.

Farm Watch

Farm Watch is a valuable tool in helping to prevent rural crime, the scheme means that any crimes that occur in the rural community are circulated so that landowners can be on the lookout for suspicious vehicles and people. It also helps with the marking of property in order to make it more identifiable, and securing property in rural areas to make it harder for would-be criminals to strike.

Farm Watch has been a massive success and continues to go from strength to strength, if you wish to find out more please speak to one of us or email us here via this link and mark your message FAO of PC Mick Ames who runs the local Farm Watch and Country Watch schemes.

General advice is to keep all tools particularly garden equipment such as chainsaws, lawn mowers, hedge trimmers etc locked away securely. If possible mark these items to make them easy to identify. Shed alarms are available from most DIY stores and are worth the investment, especially if you have expensive tools stored away. It is also suggested that anyone who owns stables and stores their tack etc in them to think about alarming these.

If you would like your tack marked in order to help make it more identifiable and traceable please email us here following this link and a time and date will be arranged for a Equine Liaison Officer to attend and carry out this process for you.

Rural poaching incidents

If you see any headlights in fields, or anything that seems suspicious please call us as soon as possible and quote Operation Thornley when you speak to the control room, this way we can initiate the correct and immediate response of suitable vehicles to the area.

Offenders Brought to Justice

To be updated soon.
 

Neighbourhood Watch

Police and the local Neighbourhood Watch are continuing to share information and work together closely. A special thanks to Sally Tunstell who is the co-ordinator for
Odiham, her continued support and energy are a blessing to our local
scheme.

If you are not a member of the local Neighbourhood Watch scheme, and would like to find out more about Neighbourhood Watch please contact us, details of how to do this are at the bottom of this web page. If you want to set up a Neighbourhood Watch scheme in your area please contact Sally Tunstell on this link here.

Pub Watch

Pub Watch is a scheme which sees all the licensed establishments in Odiham, Hook and surrounding villages working together to promote safer drinking practices throughout the area.

The scheme introduces the banned from one banned from all initiative. This appears to be going from strength to strength, we now have six local trouble makers on the list who are no longer welcome in these establishments, and offenders have so far been banned for threatening and violent behaviour and theft.

Pub Watch is run by the landlords and it is their decision as to who gets banned and the length of ban imposed. It is hoped that this will deter anti-social and unacceptable behaviour, keep the staff safe in their work environment and stop those who cannot conduct themselves in an appropriate way from spoiling the atmosphere for regular customers.

Crime Prevention Advice

Please follow these simple steps below to make your home more secure.

• Do not leave keys in view of doors or windows
• Do not leave keys in the hallway near to the door
• Lock the front door with the key and use extra bolts
• Consider an alarm that fits on the letter box (known as glass minders), it will alert you if the letter box is opened – thieves may use tools to reach through and remove keys to open the door!
• Close and lock all windows and doors if you are leaving the house
• Do not leave the front of house open if you are at the rear of the house

Please follow these simple steps to avoid becoming a victim of vehicle crime.

• Don’t leave anything in your car – if it’s not there then it can’t be stolen! Thieves aren’t picky, they will often steal and item and look to see what it is later
• Always secure your car, lock it and do up the windows even if you are posting a letter or going into the petrol station
• Choose a stereo that can be removed and make sure you take it with you! You should also mark it with your registration number and postcode in case it’s stolen
• Don’t leave you house keys, or anything with your address on it in your car, thieves could use this to get into your house

Please follow these simple steps to help keep your neighbourhood safe.

• Report any anti-social behaviour to police even if you feel it to be quite minor – this helps police to build a picture of problems in the area and so be able to try to deal with it
• Please report any suspicious vehicles in your area – often criminals will drive round an area prior to committing a crime
• Please report any door to door salesmen or people who come to your address who you feel are suspicious, give as much detail as possible including car details

Usually your gut instinct is right – if it looks out of place or suspicious there’s usually a reason for it!

How you can take action

Beat surgeries

We have been carrying out beat surgeries in Odiham. However we are still finding that residents are not attending or approaching us with their views. If we don’t know what your issues are or what you would like police to concentrate their resources on then we can’t change anything.

If you have anything you would like to make us aware of or any suggestions as to how we can better police your area please drop by and let us know, we are here to serve you and your community, however, we need you to advise us what you feel the issues are.

Below are the dates for upcoming beat surgeries, this is an opportunity for you to come and meet us, ask any questions about the local area, and give any suggestions as to how we can improve our service to you.

Please take this opportunity to give us any feedback and report any concerns, we rely on YOU the residents to tell us what is happening, and we cannot meet your needs without this input.

If you have any suggestions or ideas as to locations and times when you would like us to attend your neighbourhood to carry out  a beat surgery please let us know and we will organise a date.   

Odiham Beat Surgeries dates:

The following beat surgeries will take place on Tuesdays from 10.30am until 12.30pm during the morning market, on the below dates:

• August 9
• September 6
• October 4
• November 1

Your Voice Counts - community priorities

Your Safer Neighbourhoods team wants to hear from you. Have your say on what the policing priorities should be for your area, by clicking here to download a copy of the form and send it back to your local team.   

Volunteering

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. 

Station Opening Times

Currently Odiham Police Station is open weekdays from 4pm till 5pm; this is staffed by our volunteer Station Enquiry Officer Gordon. At any other time if a police car is parked outside then please knock as there may be an officer inside.

There is an emergency telephone on the wall outside the station. There is also an answer phone service for the station; the phone number can be found in the Parish magazine.

Contacting us

Please remember that there are various ways that you can contact the police. Consider how urgent your call is. If there is a crime in progress it is better that we arrive at the time, whilst the relevant people are still about.

If you return home to find damage then contacting 101 will enable the police to respond at a convenient time for all.Emails and messages to the Odiham beat office will not get such a quick response since they depend on one of the officers being in the office – we try to be out and about much of the time. Please contact us via the details given at the bottom of the page.

Crime Mapping and local performance information

How to contact us

If you would like to speak to the officers responsible for your local area please call 101 or  email the Odiham Safer Neighbourhoods team