THE new chief of New Forest police is to introduce a special crime-busting unit for the area.

Superintendent Paul Colley - the newly appointed top police officer for the New Forest - told The Echo he is forming a proactive unit of officers to target specific criminal and nuisance problems in the area.

The Superintendent got his first taste of such problems when he attended a recent police liaison meeting in Lymington.

He heard from residents how a gang of 15 youths were "terrorising" the community by vandalising property, torching abandoned cars and causing extreme nuisance.

One resident told the meeting that the situation was getting so bad that it was only a matter of time before somebody took the law into their own hands.

Supt Colley, said: "Although the New Forest is an area of low crime there are problems, like nuisance, that are of real concern, especially to residents.

"Listening to people at that meeting and speaking to the local inspector there is clearly a problem in Lymington, and in particular the Pennington area.

"I told the inspector to put in a bid for more overtime officers to be drafted in and for the pro-active unit to go in when it is set up.

"The pro-active unit, which I am forming at the moment, is a team of five uniformed officers and two detectives.

"They will be tasked to deal with specific crime or nuisance-related problems through intelligence, covert operations, and a uniformed presence so the people know we are in the area.

"The aim is to get more arrests, or in the case of youths, bring them to court or go to their parents to tell them of the problems."

It is not just in Lymington where juvenile nuisance and vandalism is causing concern.

New Milton has been plagued with similar problems, in particular New Milton Recreation ground has been a regular target.

Ringwood, too has had town centre problems, especially car crime.

"I'm not pretending we're going to solve these problems overnight but the proactive unit we be a very good start," Supt Colley added.

"We have a serious difficulty in recruiting new officers at the moment and such a unit is making the best of the resources we already have by purging an area when we need to."