PETERSFIELD Neighbourhood Police Team is now helping the vulnerable as well as dealing with crime, says East Hampshire Chief Inspector Beth Pirie.

Last April the Chief Inspector guided the team through a boundary change, which now means the police area is the same as that covered by East Hampshire District Council.

The neighbourhood team consists of 18 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs), plus three extra PCSOs funded by the district council, eight PCs, three sergeants and an inspector – but these are just the officers seen out and about every day.

She said: “At the moment we are only one PC under strength, and the three council-funded PCSOs are making a real difference.

“There are also the other specialist units we can call on, such as the serious crime squad, traffic officers, dog teams, forensic officers and the police helicopters, as well as the 999 response teams based at Alton, and the CID at Basingstoke.

“As a consequence, as well as crime, the neighbourhood team is able to offer more help to vulnerable people, such as those suffering from domestic abuse, or those with mental health issues, and we are working very closely with other agencies.”

One of the recently agreed targets was to reduce rural crime, and in the run up to Christmas poachers were targeted.

CI Pirie said: “We held meetings with landowners and gamekeepers and were pro-active and the number of incidents tailed off.

“Crime such as bike thefts probably has a bigger impact on every day life than people realise. Bikes are expensive, and if people need them to get to work, they suffer.

“If there are lots of bike thefts in a town, that damages the quality of life for everyone.”

The police team recently arrested two suspected bike thieves after almost a dozen expensive cycles were stolen.

The duo travelled to Petersfield and it is believed they arrived by train and often went home with a stolen bike. Going forward the Police team is determined to keep the crime rate low across East Hampshire.

A keen long distance runner CI Pirie, who lives locally and often enjoys the weekly 5km run staged through the Queen Elizabeth Country Park with her family, said: “I am very happy here, it’s a lovely place and I have no plans to leave.

“The officers care passionately about it – they are a very impressive team.

"East?Hampshire faces no major crime issues and is one of the most crime free areas in the country.

“It is a safe place to live with a very low crime rate. There is virtually a full complement of officers, ready to respond to any eventuality – they often deal with more non-crime incidents.

“And there is a very, very low level of hate crime here, with perhaps only two or three incidents a month.

“We are working with partners such as East Hampshire District?Council and others to minimise, prevent and stop crime in East?Hampshire.”