Police in Somerset say they received 85 calls each day last year that were ‘inappropriate’ and wasted valuable time and resources.
The figure comes as the force struggles to reach the target for response times, with officers only responding to three out of four emergency calls within their target time, according to a Freedom of Information request.
Over the past six years the force has seen an increase in calls, receiving an additional 20,000.
The latest figures show that in 2014, only 77.60 per cent of urban calls and 75 per cent of rural calls were responded to in 15 minutes.
In 2014, the force received 79,074 grade one phone calls, up from 55,330 calls in 2008 when 87.60 per cent of urban calls and 83.70 per cent of rural calls were responded to in 15 minutes.
A spokeswoman for Avon and Somerset Police said: “We get calls asking for taxi numbers, opening hours of the local convenience store and over Christmas we even had a call to 999 from someone reporting a queue jumper in the Santa’s Grotto.”
