VULNERABLE people in Whitehill and Bordon now have a safe place to go if they are feeling overwhelmed or being bullied, abused or harassed.

The Safe Place scheme has been rolled out across Whitehill and Bordon under East Hampshire District Council’s Healthy New Town programme to ensure vulnerable people have somewhere they can feel comfortable. There are six Safe Places in the town, offering refuge to anyone who feels intimidated or at risk while they are out and about.

The scheme provides a place, with trained staff, for people to seek help or simply to just calm down and have some alone time.

Easily recognisable by their yellow and red ’Safe Place’ sticker, the Whitehill

and Bordon Safe Places are at Tesco, on the A325; Quebec Cafe at Quebec Park on Camp Road; the Forest Surgery on Forest Road, Whitehill; the Badgerswood

Surgery on Mill Lane, Headley; the Forest Community Centre on Pinehill Road,

Bordon, and The Phoenix Theatre and Arts Centre on Station Road, Bordon.

Ferris Cowper, the district council’s portfolio holder for Whitehill and Bordon, said: “It is important that, as the town develops, all residents and visitors feel safe and can enjoy all the new facilities on offer. We would like to thank all the businesses that have already signed up to be a Safe Place.

“It is great to have six stretching all the way across the town.”

* If you would like to offer a Safe Place, contact Rebecca Treharne, the council’s

Healthy New Town project officer on [email protected].