CRIME investigators in Swindon will spend their precious rest days this year training for a gruelling 80-mile trek across the Ridgeway for charity.

After resolving to get fitter in 2015, the idea was floated of training for a charity event, and 16 officers from CID and the Local Crime Team have now signed up for the 48-hour challenge, in aid of The British Heart Foundation and Prospect Hospice.

The group,organised by PC Carl Jones of the Local Crime Team, will set off from Ivinghoe Beacon at 6am on September 5, aiming to finish up at the Red Lion in Avebury by 6pm the next day– in time for last orders.

Codenamed Operation Ridgeway, the task will mean every member of the team will be walking for between 16 and 20 hours each day to ensure they finish in good time.

“This all stems from a New Year’s resolution when we were all sat in the office talking about ways of getting fitter, and it has all snowballed into this event,” said PC Jones.

“All of us here have friends, colleagues or family members who have suffered from coronary issues, and we thought we might as well train for charity and get fitness levels up in the process.

“The investigative hub in Swindon is a very close-knit group of departments and we look after each other, so we sent out a cross-department invite for all of our colleagues to come together and do something positive.

“We have a number of people signed up but we all work different shifts.

“The idea is we will have groups walking sections of the Ridgeway for training so we get an idea of the lie of the land, and we have set a date in September, which gives us time to get some serious training in.

“Although we are doing this as part of the police force, everything will be done in our own time and the walk completed on rest days.

“Some colleagues are even using part of their leave to do this, so there is a huge amount of commitment from everyone involved.

“We have discussed what this is going to involve and have worked out we will have to walk around two and a half or three miles an hour, between 16 and 20 hours each day.

“We have 16 people involved at the moment from plenty of different teams, including the local crime team and CID.

“That said, I’m not sure just how horrendous this challenge is going to be has properly sunk in for many of us.

“We will be raising money for two charities, the British Heart Foundation nationally, and Prospect Hospice locally.

“We have one Justgiving page at the moment we will be setting up a separate one so people can decide which charity they would like their money to go to.”

BHF fundraising director Louise Parkes said: “We’d like to encourage as many people as possible to support Operation Ridgeway, which promises to be great fun for everyone involved.

“By engaging in events like this, you are helping our life-saving and life-changing work to continue.

“We’re fighting for every heartbeat but we can’t do it without you.”

For more information visit www.facebook.com/operationridgeway, and to donate visit www.justgiving.com/}operationridgeway.