Police say ASB calls in Andover fell 40% year on year in July, and 17.1% across Test Valley from May to August. Our check of the open data finds May went up.

Anti-social behaviour calls from Andover fell by 40% year on year in July, Hampshire Constabulary says, the biggest single-month improvement in a summer campaign that the force says cut ASB reports across Test Valley by 17.1% between May and August compared with the same four months in 2025.

The force published the figures on 18 September. (Hampshire Constabulary)

The campaign comes from a district ASB reduction strategy the force drew up in May 2026. Officers analysed trends to find hot spots, then put resources into the places generating the most complaints.

The four things officers went after

Neighbourhood policing teams, backed by district officers, picked four issues out of the crime data and out of talking to residents:

  • youth-related anti-social behaviour
  • anti-social behaviour linked to cannabis use
  • nuisance from off-road bikes
  • a rise in incidents and calls about derelict buildings and urban exploring

Police Sergeant Ty Tapper, of the North Andover Neighbourhood Policing Team, said the force’s work on cannabis-linked ASB “saw a 56% decrease in reports between June and July, which we are thrilled to see”.

On off-road bikes, he was blunt. “Throughout the summer we have targeted activity to address the nuisance caused by off-road bikes in the Lady’s Walk and Picket Twenty area,” he said. “Part of this work included utilising drone technology and will continue throughout the next season. I want our message to be clear, if you are causing anti-social behaviour this way, we will issue seizure notices and take action.”

The force also ran an Andover Youth Survey, launched in May, which drew more than 260 responses. PS Tapper said it “helped our partners shape diversionary activities and opportunities for young people”.

What the open data shows

The force’s figures count reports and calls made to police. The Home Office publishes a different measure: the anti-social behaviour incidents that appear on the street-level crime map, released monthly under the Open Government Licence.

We counted those incidents for the four police neighbourhoods that cover the town, Andover Town, Andover North, Andover South and Andover East. They tell a more uneven story than the headline.

Anti-social behaviour incidents recorded in Andover, 2025 against 2026 Grouped bar chart of anti-social behaviour incidents on the police.uk street-level map across the four Andover police neighbourhoods. May: 71 in 2025, 90 in 2026. June: 87 in 2025, 75 in 2026. July: 77 in 2025, 50 in 2026. August 2025 is missing from the open data, so no comparison is possible for that month. Andover ASB incidents: 2025 against 2026 Incidents on the police.uk street-level map, four Andover police neighbourhoods combined. 2025 2026 71 90 May up 27% 87 75 June down 14% 77 50 July down 35% Source: police.uk street-level data, Open Government Licence. August 2025 is missing from the published data, so it cannot be compared. Graphic by Andover News
July is the month the campaign shows up hardest in the open data. May went the other way.

Three things are worth saying plainly about those numbers.

July corroborates the force’s headline. Recorded incidents in the four Andover neighbourhoods fell from 77 to 50, down 35%, against the 40% fall in calls the force reports. Two different counts of two different things, moving the same way and by a similar amount, is about as good as local verification gets.

May went up, not down. Recorded incidents rose from 71 to 90. That is the month the strategy was written, so it is the baseline rather than a result, but it does mean the summer did not improve steadily from the start.

August cannot be checked at all. Hampshire Constabulary supplied no anti-social behaviour records to the national street-level dataset for August 2025, so there is no 2025 figure to compare August 2026 against. The force’s May-to-August total therefore cannot be tested against the open data, and we are taking it as published.

Across the three months that can be compared, recorded incidents in Andover fell from 235 to 215, a drop of about 8.5%.

What it means for you

Reporting is what generates the hot-spot map. The force is explicit that the analysis behind this campaign came from crime data and community engagement, so an incident nobody reports is an incident that does not shape where officers go. As the statement puts it: “every report you make helps us to take action”.

How to report anti-social behaviour in Andover:

Off-road bikes are being dealt with by seizure. If you are being bothered by them around Lady’s Walk or Picket Twenty, the force says that work continues into the next season, with drones.

The police are not the only route. The force’s own guidance points out that other bodies have powers over anti-social behaviour as well, and links to Neighbourhood Watch’s guide to recognising and reporting it. Test Valley Borough Council is the authority for noise nuisance and environmental enforcement, and takes reports through its own website.

Sources