Welcome to the Winchester Street Pastors and School Pastors site.

Our Street Pastors offer reassurance, safety and support to all people working in or enjoying our city’s night-time economy through caring, listening and helping. Although we are an independent charity, we work closely with the local Police, Winchester BID and Winchester City Council to help make our city safer at night. Our teams are on duty from 10pm to 3am, every Friday and Saturday night. We stop and chat to anyone we meet while providing a peaceful presence on the night-time streets.

Since January 2024 we have had pairs of School Pastors in four of the city’s schools over the lunch hour, one day each week. The volunteers build relationships with pupils and staff, and we hope this will extend over time into the wider local community. We plan to recruit more volunteers so as to extend coverage from the start of the next school year, as we know of other schools who would like to participate.

All Street Pastor groups are part of a national team first pioneered by the Ascension Trust in 2003, and Street Pastors continues to grow throughout the UK and across the world. Our first patrol in Winchester went out in 2011 after being commissioned at the Cathedral on 21st June. We train and commission new volunteers every year.

Our volunteers come from around fifteen local churches which care about the community in Winchester.