PLEASE NOTE: On 1 April 2021, Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service merged with the Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service.
This fire & rescue service covers Hampshire, which is the third-most populous county in England, including the cities of Southampton, Portsmouth and Winchester, and its largest towns of Havant, Basingstoke, Gosport and Eastleigh.
85 percent of Hampshire is defined as rural and over a third of the county is within National Parks or Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
Hampshire has 11 district councils, 261 parish and town councils and 545,000 households, of which 71 percent are owner-occupied (2011 Census). Tourism is worth almost £3 billion annually to the Hampshire economy. Each year Hampshire is visited by 4.5 million staying visitors and a further 52 million day visitors.
At the close of 2015, the Chief Constable and more than 100 Hampshire Constabulary staff moved into the fire headquarters in Eastleigh, creating the first shared police and fire headquarters in the country.
For over 160 years, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary independently assessed and reported on the efficiency and effectiveness of police forces and policing, in the public interest.
In summer 2017, HMIC (now HMICFRS) took on inspections of England’s fire & rescue services, assessing and reporting on their efficiency, effectiveness and leadership.
Neil Odin
