THE New Forest could see more police officers return to neighbourhood policing teams in Fordingbridge and Ringwood.

The New Forest district commander, Chief Inspector Robert Mitchell, spoke about policing and challenges faced by Hampshire Constabulary during Fordingbridge Town Council’s annual assembly on April 18.

Mr Mitchell said further cuts coming up would impact on specialist services including the force support unit who specialise in dealing with public order, violent or dangerous individuals that need to be detained, or sieges on houses.

He said: “That unit has been removed now and those officers are coming back into local policing. We have to work differently with it so their skills will be retained.”

He said some officers from roads policing were also coming back into local policing as well as back office functions like intelligence gathering.

Mr Mitchell said: “What that means for me is I get four extra bobbies who will be coming to the New Forest. Three of them next month and one in the autumn.

“All four of them I’m going to put them on the western side of the New Forest . At least two of them will be Ringwood or Fordingbridge. That is my plan at this time.”

Mr Mitchell added: “The constabulary is still under pressure with money but we are going to do the best we can with it. Neighbourhood policing is still a priority for the chief constable. Some specialist functions are going but those officers will come into local policing and so that will give me more options to actually get people out patrolling.”

The meeting heard funding for policing had been substantially cut since 2010 which had lead to changes in the structure.

He said: “We have to look at ways of saving and keeping people safe for as minimal cost as possible.”

The structure of local policing commands had also changed with some functions centrally run from the force’s headquarters. He said it was about “prioritising resources” where they are needed.

“The downside is we have got 1,000 less police officers than what we had in 2010. I’m not making excuses, the onus is on us, we still have £300 million a year to operate a policing service that keeps everyone safe but with less officers and less money so we have to be smart about how we are going to do that. We have invested in technology and invested in collaboration with other forces to try and make that happen as well.”

He said: “I am aware a lot of people have concerns around local policing, possibly around visibility and maybe a perception that we’re not dealing with some of the lower level type of offending that really gets under the skin and ruins people’s lives.

“Firstly, I’d like to say neighbourhood policing is about trying to tackle that sort of thing.”

In terms of neighbourhood policing, Mr Mitchell said it was about working “intelligently” with partners like the Community Safety Partnership to look at issues around mental health, addiction or housing issues to deal with problems in the first instance.

He reiterated the importance of reporting issues to local policing teams so they can be referred to the partnership.