WARMINSTER police chief Insp Geoff Miles has reassured villagers in Codford that they are not living in a hotbed of crime, after hearing of concerns over their community's apparent lack of attention from his officers.

At a Codford Parish Council meeting on Monday councillors heard of an increasing frustration with the police response to incidents in the village.

Chairman Romy Wyeth said: "There is widespread dissatisfaction with the call handling service and lack of feedback from the police.

"Illegal hare coursing appears to have a low priority and there was a poor response to a 999 call when officers turned up at the wrong location in another village. There is now a lack of belief that reporting incidents will actually achieve anything."

Codford Sports and Social Club is looking at funding a CCTV camera because of vandalism. Cllr Wyeth said the police had promised the village use of a mobile camera to tackle the problem almost two years ago, but nothing had happened.

But Insp Miles said: "The villagers' perception is that it is a village out of control, but in reality it's nothing like that.

"That perception of crime is the hardest thing I've got to fight against. In the last year there were 29 crimes in Codford so let's keep it in perspective.

"A lot of time and effort has been put into Codford and we've found no significant problems to deal with."