PUBLIC spirited local councillor Diane Hooper thought she was doing her duty when she responded to a police appeal for help in tracing the owners of three abandoned wheelchairs. She passed on vital information to help officers return the wheelchairs found in Minehead to their rightful owner - the town's Tesco supermarket. But, she told her fellow Williton parish councillors and West Somerset's police chief Inspector Nic Crocker, she had not bargained for the amount of time it took. "I knew Tesco had lost three wheelchairs so when I saw the appeal in the Free Press I phoned the number given out," Cllr Hooper told the council's monthly meeting on Monday. But the number connected her to the Avon and Somerset force headquarters in Bristol, from which she was transferred to Taunton. And none of the people answering the call knew anything about the abandoned wheelchairs. "I must have spent at least half an hour on the phone," said Cllr Hooper. "It's very frustrating and off-putting and I'm sure most people would have just given up and not bothered. "I persevered because I've got a 91-year-old relative who needs those wheelchairs when I take her shopping at Tesco." Cllr Robin Hooper said he had waited 17 minutes to have his call answered when he tried to seek advice over an incident in Taunton when a woman with a shopping trolley banged into his car in a supermarket car park. "Even then I found myself speaking to someone in Portishead," he said. Inspector Crocker said the main problem with the police communications system was simply that too many people were calling. "We simply can't cope with the demand," he admitted. "We get about 25,000 calls a month across the force area and we struggle to answer them in time." However, Inspector Crocker said he hoped the situation would be improved when a new force service centre went live within the next five weeks or so. Although based at Portishead, the centre would have sufficient staff to deal with the anticipated level of calls. Staff would also have a better grasp of local knowledge across the force area through the use of a new mapping system and the ability to email information to local stations. Inspector Crocker said the force had recognised two years ago that something had to change with the existing system. A decision had to be taken on whether the public preferred to wait longer to have their calls answered locally or in a shorter time by centrally- based staff. Inspector Crocker said he had been assured that with the aid of the mapping service, the new centre would deliver what was needed.