I’M writing to support the views of Richard Britton, chairman of the Police and Crime Panel in his recent criticism of the police and crime plan produced by the police and crime commissioner.

Having now read the plan, I too can find little in it that is designed to reduce crime across Wiltshire.

There is an awful lot of discussion about increasing volunteering and working with charities and other agencies but to my mind these three (excellent) areas of society are not crime fighters and will do little to prevent or reduce crime levels.

I note also that the PCC aims to maintain police officer numbers at just over 1,000, in my view a too small a number of officers for a county the size of Wiltshire.

While at the same time he is committing to a £1million a year PFI deal, setting up a £1million community fund and sitting on a cash reserve of almost £20million (as detailed in the back of the plan). Is my maths right?

At a starting salary of £19k, the PCC could use this £22million to pay for more than a thousand new recruits.

I just think the PCC has his strategic focus wrong, concentrating on multi-agency working while ignoring the fact that an extra 1,000 police officers may actually push crime down and make us all safer.

JOHN LILBURNE, Salisbury