METROPOLITAN police officers descended on the Quantock Hills near Over Stowey this week in the search for the remains of London estate agent Suzy Lamplugh who disappeared in 1986.

Officers said they were "optimistic" about finding the 25-year-old's body in a search of local beauty spot Dead Woman's Ditch.

The area achieved notoriety 13 years ago when the body of Bristol housewife Shirley Banks was discovered six months after she was abducted from Bristol city centre.

A man is currently in prison serving a life sentence for her murder.

Miss Lamplugh disappeared after showing a client known only as Mr Kipper around a flat in London.

She was officially declared dead in 1994 and previous searches for her body have centred on an Army barracks near Worcester.

However, police said they had received new information and would be paying particular interest in one specific area of the hills.

Detective Chief Inspector Jim Dickie said: "This is not a scattergun search - it is a result of information we have received.

"We have got reason to be searching the Quantock Hills. I can't say more, but I am very confident we will find her body."

A team of 20 officers, forensic experts and dogs especially trained to detect human remains have been carrying out a meticulous search of the hills since Tuesday.

The operation is expected to last well into the weekend, with the search being hampered by wet and muddy conditions.

However, the operation has attracted criticism from local farmer Bill Fewings who claimed the police should have waited until the foot and mouth crisis was over before traipsing through the countryside.

A former master of the Quantock Staghounds, Mr Fewings keeps 350 sheep and 80 cows on land alongside the search area.

He said no-one had asked his opinion on giving the police permission to enter areas still out of bounds to members of the public.

He said: "The last thing we want is foot and mouth spreading to our animals and infecting the Quantock herd of wild red deer.

"It is 15 years since Suzy disappeared and I don't think it would have done much harm to leave the search for a few more months until the foot and mouth epidemic is over."

A Somerset County Council spokesman said the police had been given permission to conduct the search because they were taking the correct precautions to prevent the spread of the disease.

A Metropolitan police spokesman said the search had already been postponed from earlier this year because of the foot and mouth restrictions affecting the countryside.

She said: "We have now been given the power to go ahead, so we are.

"We have every sympathy with the locals. We are Londoners, but we have taken local advice about going ahead with the dig and will try to be cautious."

As the Free Press went to print yesterday, nothing had been found in the search for Miss Lamplugh, with officers having completed a third of the operation.