Louise Aker of Winchester's Slug & Lettuce succeeds is the new chairman of PubWatch.

She succeeds Tim Hore of St James' Tavern.

PubWatch brings together representatives of the licence trade with Winchester Police, Winchester City Council Winchester City Centre Partnership and the courts.

Louise's appointment coincides with plans to re-launch the scheme and encourage more lincensed premises to sign up to it. Members of the initiative aim to reduce crime, the fear of crime and anti-social behaviour within the city centre.

The relaunch comes as new laws are set to come into effect which will put the responsibility for granting licences in the hands of local authorities.

Speaking about the scheme city centre manager, Graham Love said: "There is a great deal of interest in PubWatch from the licensed trade. Responsible business managers and licensees within Winchester are taking a proactive stance to deal with crime and anti social behaviour affecting the evening economy within the city."

He continued: "The group will play a key role in shaping future licensing arrangements in Winchester," he added.

One way in which they hope to do this will be to manage an exclusion scheme which will target persistent offenders. In addition to this the partners hope to devise a strategy for managing anti-social behaviour.