BASINGSTOKE'S new police chief has declared war on burglars - making them his number one target in his aim to make the town a safer place.

Superintendent Paul Netherton has leant his weight to The Gazette's Burglary - Let's Beat It campaign, vowing to clamp down on the crime and announcing that he will press to have burglars who live in council property evicted.

"There are too many burglaries going on and I'm going to have to make sure we are on top of them," he promised.

"Any burglars who come to Basingstoke are going to get caught and are going to have the police hounding them. I will be working with the magistrates and the local council to really make an impact on them."

Within two days of taking over at Basingstoke, Supt Netherton had already met with Crown Prosecution Service bosses to discuss the way they will treat burglars after they are arrested.

He said: "If we get any burglars into custody, we are going to be looking at using every legal method to either make sure that they get remanded in custody, or have really strict bail conditions that limit their criminal lifestyles.

"If they are committing crime from their council house, we will look at their tenancy agreement. Most of the agreements will say that they cannot commit crime from their premises and they will be evicted.

"We will be executing warrants on them, we will be putting surveillance teams out on them and using other methods to make it untenable for them to commit crime in Basingstoke."

Supt Netherton said the police need information from the public to help them combat burglary. Detectives have already received calls on an anti-burglary hotline, put in place by The Gazette as part of its campaign, which they say have helped them in their detection of the crime.

"It's really good to have the paper's support and that of the local residents, because they are the people who phone in," said Supt Netherton.

Referring to burglars, the police chief said: "It's about everybody in the community saying they are not going to tolerate these individuals and their behaviour."

Supt Netherton said he is also keen to tackle anti-social behaviour in the town, and will use anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) and acceptable behaviour contracts (ABCs) to do this.

ASBOs ban louts from the area where they are causing problems and ABCs are contracts signed by nuisance residents which can lead to ASBOs or eviction if they are broken.

Supt Netherton said: "We will be dealing with nuisance like graffiti and abandoned cars and the stuff that really makes people's lives unpleasant."

Supt Netherton took charge of Basingstoke police station on Monday. At 34, he is a young divisional commander who has already worked as a superintendent for two years at Portsmouth and has spent 10 months at the Home Office police standards unit.

He said: "I think the big issue is about meeting the concerns of the public.

"When you are in a big city, there are so many people, and so many demands, but here you can be in touch with the people locally, deal with concerns over anti-social behaviour and make Basingstoke a safer place."

Anyone who has any information that can help catch burglars should call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.