Hampshire Constabulary

Last updated on: Friday, February 19

The Safer Neighbourhoods Team for Odiham is:

PC Vicky Bolan (right), PCSO Liz Wallace (left), and Special Constable Iain Tunstell (far right). 

We are based out of Odiham Police Station.

Update by PC Bolan:

Although it is still bitterly cold out, thankfully the snow has not returned which has meant that I have been able to get out and about again on foot. I look forward to the weather warming up a bit so I can start to take the bicycle out as well.

I would also like to say a big thank you to Peter Fountain, Odiham Town Manager, who since I have taken on my role as your local officer has been extremely welcoming and helpful. He has introduced me to a lot of people in the community and shared some of his vast knowledge of Odiham and the area with me, and I look forward to continuing to work with him.

The policing pledge and your local priorities

Click here to read the national policing pledge, which sets out the service you can expect from your local police force.

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.

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.

From these questionnaires the latest beat priorities were set, they are as follows: 

• Rural breaks to outbuildings, farms and vehicles
• Speeding vehicles through the villages
• Criminal damage and anti-social behaviour in Odiham

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.

Beat newsletter

Please click here for our latest newsletter  

Hampshire Constabulary has just printed newsletters for all Safer Neighbourhood Teams, the Odiham leaflet has now been distributed at various locations around the villages for members of the community to pick up.

The newsletters contain information about your beat priorities and your Safer Neighbourhoods Team, as well as contact details. Keep your eye out for them and feel free to pick one up for your reference.

Actions we have taken in relation to your priorities

You said: You wanted the team to reduce rural breaks to outbuildings, farms and vehicles

We did:

Patrols have been increased at optimum times to try to disrupt any offenders in the area, and special operations will be running throughout the year to aid in this goal. Please keep any valuable items locked away and secure in order to help prevent thefts and breaks.

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.

The Roads Policing Unit continues to monitor the speeding through Odiham and Winchfield. In the last few months they have carried out a number of patrols and I am happy to report that no one has been found to be speeding through the villages as yet.

They intend to continue to attend the villages and monitor the traffic and carry out stops on any vehicles travelling in excess of the speed limit, you have been warned.  I am still  hoping to have Speed Indication Devices installed, unfortunately as a force we only have a limited number and so have to wait for one to become available, once they are these will be a permanent fixture again used for speed enforcement.

Dare I say that criminal damage seems to have dropped off a little now with few incidents being reported.

I would say that Neighbourhood Watch has been of massive assistance with helping to identify those responsible, and members continue to report any suspicious activity to either the Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator or ourselves and this has proved invaluable in us being able to trace the movements of the offenders. I ask that although this has dropped, people keep their eye out for anything they think is suspicious and remain vigilant. Please call it in as soon as possible in order to help police build a pattern and hopefully stop this damage from reoccurring.

Drugs are still an issue in the rural areas, lay-bys and car parks, anyone found to be taking or dealing drugs will be dealt with accordingly.

If you see any incidents please phone the police at the time if possible. Please try to get the best descriptions you can including height, build, full description of clothing, top, hair colour and style if distinctive. If they are in a group it is better to get the description of one main offender rather than trying to give vague details of all.

Other news!

PCSO Wallace and I have now attended Dogmersfield and Mayhill on a number of occasions and delivered talks to various age groups on topics such as drugs, stranger danger and how to make a 999 call. It is hoped that by raising awareness of these issues with young children they will be safer and make the right choices when growing up.

I also feel that by being present in the school it helps children to feel safe and at ease with the police and so able to approach us should they have any concerns or problems they want to discuss.

I would like to say thank you to Reception and Year one at Dogmersfield School for some of the lovely pictures they did for us when we visited them to talk about police officers and what we do. I have talks also booked with Robert Mays and Lord Wandsworth about domestic violence. This is a very emotional and important subject, and the lectures are due to take place in March 2010.

Patrols are being increased in the area of Robert Mays during drop of and collection times to try to encourage safer driving and parking by parents. This is an area where we receive a lot of complaints from other road users and residents. I would ask that anyone who needs to drop children to school, do so safely and take into account other people who also have to use the road. Also please consider that irresponsible parking can make it very dangerous for adults and children who are trying to cross.

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 and this appears to be going from strength to strength. We now have six local troublemakers on the list who are no longer welcome in these establishments. So far, people have 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.

Offenders brought to justice

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.

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

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. 

Beat Surgeries

Come and tell us what is important to you in your neighbourhood, and play your part in setting local priorities.

We have been carrying out beat surgeries in Winchfield and Odiham.  We are still finding that residents are not attending or approaching us with their views.

If we aren’t made aware of your issues or what you would like us to concentrate our resources on then we can not 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.

Winchfield Beat Surgeries

These will take place at Winchfield Train Station from 5pm until 6pm on the following dates:

• Sunday, April 18

• Thursday, May 13

• Thursday, June 10

• Thursday, July 8

• Thursday, August 5
  

Odiham Beat Surgeries

The following beat surgeries will take place when the morning market is on, on the below dates:

• Tuesday, March 23

• Tuesday, April 20

• Tuesday, May 18

• Tuesday, June 15

• Tuesday, July 13

• Tuesday, August 10
  

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.

We hope 2010 is a safe and peaceful year for you and your family

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