Members of the public who are concerned about the lack of a visible police presence in Wingham and the recent heightened incidences of crime are being urged to attend.

“We want as many people as we can get there,” said Dennis Wisely, member of WAG.

“We want a policeman here more than once or twice a fortnight.”

The members of the Wingham Advancement Group aren’t the only ones to voice that wish.

Shell Bird has been actively campaigning to have a full time police officer return to the Wingham police station.

Shell initiated an online petition at change.org, and has distributed paper petitions to businesses throughout Wingham.

To date she has 1415 signatures, and still has more to pick up from local shops.

Copies of the petitions will go to the NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, Acting Local Area Commander Peter McKenna, Member for Myall Lakes Stephen Bromhead and Member for Lyne Dr David Gillespie.

She has also created a Facebook group called ‘Bring back a fulltime copper into the Wingham community’, which is currently sitting at 560 members.

The group is very active, with people constantly reporting on incidences of break ins and/or attempted break ins to their houses.

Recently there have been multiple complaints of garbage items left out for council pickup being set on fire, with the fire brigade needing to attend to douse the blazes. Wingham’s skate park was also set on fire by vandals.

However many of these incidences are going unreported to the police, and it is only by reporting these incidences that the situation will change, as police rely on statistics of reported incidents to decide on policing matters. No incident is too minor to report.

“Someone told me that they’d had fuel siphoned out of their car and their petrol cap was damaged, but it wasn’t reported,” said Shell, who is frustrated at the lack of reporting of incidents.

Shell says is she is very grateful to WAG for organising the meeting and appreciates the opportunity to be present.

“I’m really excited about this meeting,” she said. “We’re going to make a difference. Something has to happen because it’s just getting worse and worse.

“I encourage as many community members as possible to attend the meeting, because if we want things to change we need numbers.”

Shell also thanked the Wingham Chronicle for their support, and “all that have signed the petitions in support of this necessary change.”