A scheme to bring volunteers from local churches out on a Friday night to make Andover a safer place for revellers celebrated its first year on 04 December 2011.

Street Pastors were introduced as a way of providing a bit of extra support for people while they’re enjoying a night out, while giving the churches a chance to branch out into the community.

They can help those that have had a little too much to drink find a way, be a listening ear for people with problems and even hand out lollipops to people that come and speak to them.

The scheme is also expanding, with 7 newly qualified pastors taking to the streets, and one of the volunteers Bev Wadhams says they get a good reaction when they’re patrolling: “We haven’t had any negative reaction – there are the youngsters that call us the God Squad, 15 or 16 years olds that tease and run by but we just smile because that’s par for the course. But the general public are really receptive.

 ”We’ve got what we call our regulars who come and have a chat, tell us how their week’s been and we’ve also got people who’ll come up and say ‘street pastors? What are you?’. We just say to them that we’re here to care, look after people and help out where we can.”

 Photos of the First Anniversary Commissioning of the new volunteers.