Commissioner funds Fire and Rescue Service to tackle anti-social behaviour

Police and Crime Commissioner, Donna Jones, has funded Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (HIOWFRS) to deliver courses for young people to reduce anti-social behaviour (ASB) in Waterlooville.

The PCC met with the young people enrolled on the course at Waterlooville Fire Station this week to see the intervention programme in action.

The initiative teaches young people skills and resilience to make safer life choices by offering meaningful activities in the drill yard and opportunities to engage with firefighters.

The intervention is one of the projects that benefitted from a £500K cash injection from the PCC’s ASB Fund announced last year to further tackle anti-social behaviour across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

PCC Donna Jones said: “People living across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight consistently tell me ASB is too high and they want more done to reduce the harm. ASB can be linked to people and groups, to geographical areas and behaviours such as driving.

“My commitment has been and will remain on driving down ASB. I have funded millions of pounds of initiatives over the last four years and as a consequence we have seen significant drops in ASB. With that said, there is still more to do. The key is giving young people something to do in all communities and making them feel valued. Until that happens tackling ASB will be a focus for the police.”

The HIOWFRS Children & Young People Delivery Manager is Jo Gregory: “We were really pleased to welcome the Police Commissioner to our Waterlooville IMPACT programme. The PCC’s ASB funding has directly funded a number of our Early Intervention programmes during 2024 and 2025. This funding has allowed us to support young people to build their personal resilience, and equip them with the tools and knowledge to stay safe and make safer choices so they can positively impact their local communities.

“To date, programmes funded by the PCC have supported young people in communities across Fareham, Gosport and Waterlooville. As a Service, we are committed to playing our part in the reduction of anti-social behaviour and in the reduction of violence within the communities we serve. We will be bringing our Early Intervention programmes to more locations throughout 2025 including Redbridge, Southsea and Basingstoke.”

The Police Commissioner launched her ASB Task Force in 2021 when she became PCC allocating over £150K a year to support services and interventions. In addition to the extra £500K cash injection announced last year, the PCC also released £750K of Home Office grant funding to local authorities to fund specialist ASB community wardens to patrol in ASB hotspot areas.

Over recent years, there has been a dramatic decline of over 50% in the number of recorded ASB incidents in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight:

1 April 2020 – 31 March 2021
36,944 recorded incidents

1 April 2021 – 31 March 2022
28,858 recorded incidents

1 April 2022 – 31 March 2023
22,118 recorded incidents

1 April 2023 – 31 March 2024
18,721 recorded incidents

1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025
17,925 recorded incidents