New Year Update from New Forest District Commander, Chief Inspector Scott Johnson

Good evening, 

Well, the new year is here and there’s an awful lot to bring you up to speed on, not least the great work being undertaken by our teams and officers from departments across the New Forest district.

Firstly, at the end of June, we took part in the latest County Lines Intensification Week. If you’ve never heard of it before, County Lines is the term used to describe drug dealing where a phone number ‘line’, usually a mobile, is used to supply drugs from large cities into rural towns and areas. During the week of action (Monday 23 June to Sunday 29 June), we visited schools to complete vital education regarding County Lines and drugs. Our drugs detection dogs were also involved. Arrests were also made in connection with suspected possession with intent to supply offences. 

Over the summer months, we launched a campaign aimed at reducing the number of thefts from vehicles and bicycle thefts in the New Forest, reminding tourists and local residents to take their possessions with them and not to leave any valuables or belongings in their vehicles. We worked closely with our partners, sharing lots of crime prevention advice in the process, including on the nozzles at petrol stations – just one additional way of sharing our messages with as many people as possible, including visitors to our area, those who may not otherwise see the updates on our local channels. 

Summer campaign targeting theft in the New Forest launches | Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

All of this work saw a noticeable reduction in the number of reports for the crimes referenced above – with 50 per cent fewer bicycles stolen (often high-value bikes) and 35 per cent fewer thefts from motor vehicles compared to the same period in 2024. We are extending this campaign over the winter period, so please continue to look out for much more on this over the coming weeks and months, including SOLV messages on your mobile phones.

Please don’t be alarmed when these SOLV messages pop up on your screen. In short, we have been using these alerts, both over the summer and into the winter months, to further communicate with our communities, as well as visitors to the New Forest, using targeted messaging on digital mass-media. 

This messaging, which is used by law enforcement agencies and emergency services across the country, enables us to instantly reach a large group of people in an identified area and share important appeals, crime prevention advice, traffic information, and much more. 

These messages have proven extremely successful in delivering vital information to you, including about recently reported crimes in a certain area, and how to keep you and your property safe. It’s one additional way for us to reach as many people as possible.

In September, we received information to suggest that there was a planned gathering of a large group of people, who were believed to be intent on taking part in an illegal poaching and hare coursing event. Over a period of several days, various departments, including the Rural Crime Task Force, worked tirelessly with the community, partners and counterparts in neighbouring forces to ensure this event was stopped firmly in its tracks. The potential for any criminality was never realised, a positive outcome which was only made possible thanks to the joint-working and expertise of all concerned, including the information and support of the public. 

In November, Lymington was announced as one of the emerging areas enjoying the huge impact of the UK Partners Against Crime app. We have been working alongside retailers in the town to successfully tackle shoplifting from our stores. 

Thanks to the crime fighting initiative in Lymington, where 31 shops have already signed up to UKPAC, retail offences there have dropped considerably, from 16 in January 2025 and 15 in February 2025, to four in September and seven in October. 

Across the district, meanwhile, there were 41 reports in December 2025 (18 in the East and 23 in the West), which was an overall decrease of 56 reports compared to the same period in 2024. That’s 56 fewer victims.

UKPAC is a community of like-minded retail, hospitality, and rural businesses, alongside police, crime prevention agencies, and legal professionals — all working together to improve trading environments and community safety. 

You can find out much more about UKPAC, and how to sign up and report incidents, by visiting their website, here - uk-pac.com 

In addition to all of the above, we’ve continued to work closely with our partners, holding more of our Walking in Partnership beat surgeries. These take place in conjunction with our Forestry England partners’ guided walks. The aim of these important events is to offer support and reassurance to solo walkers, giving confidence to those who don’t feel as comfortable when walking alone. These will continue over the coming 12 months. 

Many more bicycle coding sessions have taken place across our area. A security-marked bike is far less attractive to potential thieves. However, if a bike is still subsequently stolen after being coded, we then have a much better chance of locating and reuniting it with its rightful owner. You can learn more about bike coding here - Totton NPT's PCSO Will talks about cycle coding

We’ve carried out further Op Mountie sessions. This is our multi-agency approach to reducing people’s speed on the roads and preventing animal deaths across the New Forest. As the number of commoners and grazing animals has increased, so too, sadly, has the number animal deaths on our roads.

In addition to this ongoing operation, I have recently met and spoken with The Verderers of the New Forest, including Lead Verderer Cllr Edward Heron, to discuss what further we can do to make our roads safer for all. Following on from this and other discussions, you will have likely seen the updates around our very high-visibility patrols of Roger Penny Way. You can read more on this here - Officers have again been patrolling Roger Penny Way, Fordingbridge to provide a visible presence and ensure safety for all road users.  

Following on from the previous, and since the launch of the Let’s Talk community survey at the end of 2024, the issue of speeding has continually been listed as a priority by many of you. On the question of ‘What are the issues affecting you in your community which would benefit from joint working between police, partners and community members to resolve?’, more of you have answered ‘speeding’ than any other issue. And, on the question of ‘What would you say is the top issue that is affecting you most here?’, more of you have again answered ‘speeding’ than any other issue.

Reflecting upon and responding to your concerns, the Safer Roads Unit have again been completing lots of enforcement and deterrent across our district, using both mobile and fixed cameras. In November, there were 36 visits to our area, which equated to 96 hours and 30 minutes of speed checks across the district. A total of 688 offences were recorded during those visits. The aim of the enforcement we carry out is to help support you reduce the speed of traffic, making the roads safer for all road users, and reduce the risk of injury, collisions and casualties in our area.

We will continue to respond to your concerns and tackle the issues affecting you in your community, so please continue to let us know what is impacting you where you live. We’ll bring you monthly updates on our work around speeding, so please continue to stay tuned to our Facebook page and Hampshire Alert.

Op Sceptre took place in November. The week of action, aimed at tackling and reducing knife crime, involved many of our teams and officers throughout the district.

The focus of their work involved carrying out home visits to habitual knife carriers, completing proactive patrols in identified hotspot areas and engaging with and further educating young people around the very real dangers of carrying knives.

Officers also held beat surgeries, visited local knife retailers to share important information and advice, and positioned the surrender bin in various locations, for people to dispose of offensive weapons. You can find more details about the surrender bins, via the below link.

Knife Surrender Bins | Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary

We’ve continued to bring you lots of updates from our Rural Crime Task Force, highlighting their brilliant and relentless work in dealing with all things rural crime-related, including the recovering and returning of stolen vehicles and other property, and Op Traverse patrols in response to reports of illegal fishing. We share the RCTF’s updates on our various channels, including the New Forest Police Facebook page and Hampshire Alert, so please stay tuned for more of their activity and results. If you haven’t already, please consider signing up to Hampshire Alert and following us on Facebook, the details of which are below.

Aside from all of that, our Neighbourhood Policing Team officers have been linking in with and visiting schools to offer further education around many important topics, supporting partners to deal with and remove abandoned vehicles, seizing uninsured vehicles, including cars and e-scooters, and responding to and tackling reports of anti-social behaviour.  

Over the coming weeks and months, you can expect to see our teams and officers doing lots more of the above, and much more. We will continue to relentlessly target and prevent those committing crime in our beautiful part of the world, and will be sure to bring you the very latest on any arrests, charges and convictions at court, so please keep following us on our channels. We’ll also bring you news on warrants that have been executed and our efforts to tackle those using and supplying drugs. We’ll continue to advertise the dates of upcoming beat surgeries on our channels, so please look out for these. Our beat surgeries are an ideal opportunity for you to come and see us, ask questions and discuss any concerns. In the meantime, if you need to report anything to us, please call 101. In an emergency, please dial 999.

Once again, if you have CCTV cameras at your business or home address, please register them with Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary’s Community Portal to help us deter and solve crimes.

The service is free of charge and entirely voluntary. By registering with the Community Portal, you are not giving Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary access to your CCTV system. You are purely making it easier for us to request and collect footage we may require for an investigation. 

If you haven’t already completed a Let's Talk survey, please take a moment to do so. There’s lots more on Let’s Talk, below. Please also check out the New Forest Police Facebook page and Hampshire Alert for more information on the local policing teams and what they’re doing. Our page is a great way to follow all the teams and the work they are doing to tackle crime across our district in order to keep our communities safe. Full details of the accounts and how to access them are below. You can also respond to our posts, ask questions and engage with teams. We will always do our best to reply to you on there, albeit this won't always be instant. 

We’ll continue to bring you arrest and charge updates, court results, local community news, crime prevention advice and much more. Please continue to engage with us, both in person and online. We need to hear your views and experiences and will always do our best to respond to your comments.

As always, we thank you for your co-operation and understanding as we deal with a wide-variety of issues. If you see anything suspicious or witness a crime, please report this to us by calling 101. If it is an emergency, dial 999 immediately. 

As mentioned above, Let’s Talk is our community survey initiative that aims to understand the needs of our local communities and enables you to share any concerns with our officers. It’s a really important tool which is already helping us to better understand the public’s concerns, and subsequently work with partners to effectively address the issues raised.

Let’s Talk is a really important tool for us in the New Forest and a great way for us to demonstrate, and for the communities to see, all the work we are doing. It’s being led by our Local Bobbies, who are on hand to listen to concerns, answer questions and offer advice. We have Local Bobbies across the New Forest district, the contact details for which can be found here - Local Areas - Hampshire Alert

Please take the opportunity to sign up to Let’s Talk. We want to know what it’s like to live in your area, what the issues you face are and how can we work with others to make our communities safer and stronger.

If you see one of our Local Bobbies or PCSOs knocking at your door, please spare a few minutes to talk to them. Alternatively, you can have your say online by visiting https://survey.hampshirealert.co.uk/

Members of our community messaging systems Hampshire Alert and Isle of Wight Alert will then receive updates from their neighbourhood policing team about the action taken based on the feedback we receive.

New Forest District Commander, Chief Inspector Scott Johnson