Community safety patrollers are focusing on what will make the biggest difference to local residents’ lives after Basingstoke & Deane Borough Council took over running the service on Friday 2 January.

Hampshire County Council stopped funding its Accredited Community Safety Service across the county in December meaning the end of its management of the shared patrols in Basingstoke and Deane. But the borough council decided to fund community safety patrol officers to the tune of half a million pounds a year – taking over the service in its area to keep 12 patrollers on the streets.

Now the service is focussing on the borough with the team’s work targeted to respond to incidents and issues where they are most needed. And acting on residents saying clean streets are important to them, in the first three days of the new Basingstoke and Deane run service alone six people were fined for dropping litter in Basingstoke town centre.

On the spot fines for dropping litter is just one of the powers that the patrollers have – and the current crackdown in Basingstoke town centre is set to be followed by anti-litterbug campaigns in other ‘hotspot’ areas of the borough in the coming months.

Fines for other antisocial behaviour including dog fouling, fly-posting, drinking in public areas and throwing fireworks are also community safety patrol officer powers, as well as taking information and helping with traffic incidents and abandoned vehicles, confiscating alcohol in public places and removing abandoned vehicles. The patrollers deal with antisocial behaviour and environmental crime that can escalate into more serious problems.

Patrol officers work closely with communities and the police-led ‘safer neighbourhood’ teams, carrying out high visibility patrols, deterring and combating antisocial behaviour and providing reassurance. Under new operational arrangements, the service is now managed by a borough council community safety services coordinator, who is now liaising directly with the police officer managing the police community support officers to ensure a coordinated police or council team response to incidents.

This is set to become an even more joined-up service when police teams move into the civic offices in the next months. And the areas that the patrollers will focus on working with specific communities to address local issues when they are not needed for borough-wide priority incidents have been redrawn to match police areas.

Deputy Leader Cllr Ranil Jayawardena said: “Clean and litter free streets and dealing with antisocial behaviour came in the top three most important borough services in the latest residents’ survey. Antisocial behaviour of any kind, from dropping litter to making neighbours’ lives a misery, is just not acceptable and that is why we have pledged a zero tolerance approach to tackle these issues, backed up by half a million pounds a year to fund our officers. They make a real difference to our residents, with crime and antisocial behaviour dropping to record low levels through our regular patrolling.”

The patrollers have a new email address CSPO@basingstoke.gov.uk and can be contacted on 01256 844844.