POLICE have vowed to crackdown on prearranged student parties after up to 400 people gathered at a Winchester beauty spot.

The revellers, mainly from Peter Symonds College in Winchester, had congregated on St Catherine’s Hill late at night.

Two people were arrested, one for causing criminal damage and the other for a public order offence, during the event which happened earlier this month.

Now police have brought in extra patrols to stop the events happening, but insist they are doing it for safety reasons and not to spoil fun.

Sergeant John Stribley, of Winchester police, said officers have also written to parents of pupils at the sixth form college to warn the youngsters off holding such events.

He said: “We can’t possibly allow drunk youths to stay on top of a hill at night, they could die of hypothermia or get assaulted.

"There’s all sorts of safety concerns – we had one occasion a while back where some young girls ended up on the hard shoulder of the M3 because they were so drunk.”

He said college students used to mark the end of term with a champagne breakfast but events had become bigger in recent years.

Sgt Stribley added: “As culture has changed it then turned into excessive alcohol, binge drinking, and if you throw in Facebook you’re then not just getting local people. The message is that we will be stopping it. We’re not ruining their fun, we’re doing it for their own safety and we’ll come down hard if it happens again.”