AS the bill for the late Edward Heath enquiry speeds past the £1,000,000 mark, may I suggest enough is enough and surely it is time for the chief constable to wind up his politically correct vanity project.

It should be remembered that this was an ex Prime Minister who never generated a single complaint whilst alive and who had a Special Branch bodyguard from 1970 until the day he died.

Whilst deeply sympathising with all victims of abuse, this enquiry can never bring closure to anybody as Mr Heath must be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, which as he is deceased will never happen.

But, there is a more pressing reason for halting this pointless exercise and that is the enormous loss of money from the hard-pressed police budget, which could be used in tackling the wave of rural crime blighting the area of South Wiltshire I represent.

Currently criminals are operating in the rural areas during the hours of darkness with impunity, because they know that the chances of being stopped by the police are extremely remote, as there are not the resources to put out regular police patrols.

The £1,000,000 the chief constable has happily spent on pursuing a man, dead for the last 12 years, could have been used to put at least two more dual-manned police patrol cars out on the roads in the rural areas of South Wiltshire during the hours of darkness with real tangible results.

But what I find even more astonishing is the complete lack of intervention by the police and crime commissioner, who is presumably more than satisfied to see such large sums of money haemorrhaging from the police budget on his watch, despite his role being to hold the chief constable to account!

The Journal has also reported the chief constable’s complaint against criticism of his policing policy regarding the Heath enquiry. I would cordially remind him that we live in a transparent democracy and that he would do well to actually listen to the people rather than dismiss them out of hand – after all his role is to protect the people of Wiltshire and their property, which he is manifestly failing to do at the moment in my area.

I make no criticism of the police in South Wiltshire, who are dedicated and working to the highest standards with extremely limited resources in numbers of police officers.

Cllr Chris Devine, Winterslow Division