Foster carers needed in Fleet
South Coast Fostering is recruiting foster carers in Fleet, Church Crookham, Crookham Village, Elvetham Heath, Hartley Wintney, Hook, Odiham and the villages around them. Fleet sits in Hart district, and children from Fleet who come into care are placed by Hampshire County Council.
Hampshire had 1,711 children in its care in May 2026. By February 2026, 372 of the county's children were living with independent fostering agencies, roughly 40 per cent of all its fostering placements. That share is what a shortage of council carers looks like from the inside.
Fleet is the largest administrative, retail and commercial centre in Hart, with more than 35,000 people in the wider urban area at the 2011 Census according to the district's local plan. Nothing more recent has been published below district level, so treat that as the last reliable count rather than today's.
Sharron supervises Hampshire and Isle of Wight carers for us. Visits at least every four weeks, the child seen at least every eighth week, and a phone line answered every hour of every day with a dedicated out-of-hours team behind it.
The weekly payment is £479.50 for a child up to the age of 10 and £507.50 from 11, per child. Additional needs work pays £550 to £850. A parent and child placement pays £987. Council tax support runs from £330 to £1,500 a year and rises with length of service, and HMRC's qualifying care relief leaves most fostering income untaxed. Ofsted rated us Outstanding across all three judgement areas after inspecting in January 2026. Phone 023 8235 2020.
What do you need to be a foster carer?
Start with the room. It has to be a proper bedroom the child keeps to themselves, not a converted dining room and not half of somebody else’s. A baby is the exception, sleeping in a crib next to you for the first stretch, though the room still has to be in the plan.
Availability is the harder test in Hart. The district’s local plan records that 62 per cent of working residents commute out of the district, to Rushmoor, Surrey Heath, Bracknell Forest, Guildford and London. A carer who leaves Fleet station at seven and gets home at seven cannot do the afternoon pick-up or the review meeting that runs past lunch. Plenty of applicants solve it by dropping hours or by one partner stepping back. Some do not have to. Work out which you are before you apply.
Everything after that is character, and the assessment digs into it properly. Your childhood, your relationships, your money, your health, your record. Referees are contacted, checks are run, and a report goes to an independent panel. It feels like a lot because the decision it supports is a large one.
Support you'll receive from us
- 24/7 support from your supervising social worker
- £507.50 a week in fostering allowance and fees to foster
- Intensive training program to help you be the best you can be
Where are we recruiting?
Fleet itself, plus Church Crookham, Crookham Village, Elvetham Heath, Ewshot, Dogmersfield, Winchfield, Hartley Wintney, Hook, Rotherwick, Odiham, North Warnborough and Yateley. Further out we cover Blackwater, Hawley, Farnborough and Aldershot.
Hart is a rural district with a town in the middle of it. Hart District Council’s equality information for 2025 puts 30.3 per cent of residents in rural areas, against 21.9 per cent across Hampshire. That changes what fostering looks like day to day. A carer in Fleet town walks to the school gate. A carer in Dogmersfield or Rotherwick drives to it, and drives again to every appointment after that.
Both work, and we would rather have carers in both. RAF Odiham, home of the UK Chinook Force and of 7, 18 and 27 Squadrons, sits inside the district, and service households know better than most what it costs a child to move house. If you have a spare bedroom anywhere between Yateley and Odiham, call 023 8235 2020. The Hampshire fostering page picks up where this one stops.
Fleet
Next Steps
Depending on where you are in your fostering journey, we have a few suggested next steps.
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The least deprived district in England still has children in care
Hampshire County Council’s facts and figures publication, dated May 2023, calls Hart the least deprived district in England. It sources that to the 2019 indices of multiple deprivation. Hart’s own local plan says much the same thing off the 2015 indices. Neither is current. The 2025 indices were published on 30 October 2025 and no district profile has appeared for Hart since. So the honest version is that Hart ranked as England’s least deprived district in 2019, and nobody has published a 2025 rank.
It matters less than people assume. Children come into care for reasons that have little to do with the average house price on the road. Hampshire was looking after 1,711 children in May 2026 and some of them are from Hart. What an affluent district changes is the supply of carers rather than the need for them. Long commutes and two working incomes are exactly the conditions that make it hard to keep a bedroom free.
Fleet’s shape explains part of that. The town grew around a station that opened in 1847 and it still works that way, with the Waterloo line running through it and the M3 a few minutes south. The neighbourhood plan adopted in November 2019 puts Fleet about 38 miles from London and the train at roughly 40 minutes. That is a council figure rather than an operator timetable, so treat it as indicative. It does explain the town. Fleet is where a lot of people sleep.
Fleet Town Council only exists because of a referendum in 2008, which split a previously unparished urban area into three parishes. As an institution the town is younger than most of the villages around it.
Nationally the carer base is shrinking. Ofsted counted 42,190 fostering households in England at 31 March 2025, down 1 per cent on the year, with 2,050 approvals set against 4,690 deregistrations. Those figures were published on 26 November 2025. More than two households leave for every one approved, and no district is exempt from that arithmetic, least deprived or otherwise.
From April 2028 Hart becomes part of a new North Hampshire authority with Basingstoke and Deane and Rushmoor, elected in May 2027, and children’s services move with it. The bedroom in Church Crookham will still be needed. Call 023 8235 2020.
book a call about fostering:
We’d be happy to give you a 15-20 minute call to tell you about fostering. Don’t worry, there’s no pressure from us – it’s honestly a chance for you to ask us any questions you have about fostering, and your suitability. Just complete this short form
