THERE is a need for police and the community to work together to regain a sense of common safety, a public meeting was told this week.
It was the opening message from George Hegarty, president of the Wauchope Community Progress Association, at the forum on policing needs on Wednesday morning.
Five senior police attended the forum, which was convened by the progress association to report on the Wauchope crime survey that it conducted last year and to hear from the NSW Police and local MP Andrew Stoner on strategies to combat rising crime in Wauchope.
About 50 attended the meeting convened at 9.30am to suit the availability of invited speakers.
At the meeting were Superintendent Peter Thurtell, the commander of the Mid North Coast Local Area Command, Detective Inspector Steve Clarke, Acting Detective Inspector Ann Joy and Sergeant Wayne Sainsbury.
Deputy Premier and Oxley MP Andrew Stoner also attended part of the forum.
Mr Hegarty opened the meeting by saying it was accepted by all parties that the structure of policing did not meet present needs.
"The NSW Government commissioned an audit and is presently considering the 22 recommendations which resulted from it,” he said. "It is generally accepted that rural and regional areas are hard done by and that the Local Area Command structure is not working,
"Wauchope is not alone in experiencing a rising wave of crime and rising anger among its residents. There is no doubt that something needs to be done and done quickly, and this forum starts the process for our community," he said.
Mr Hegarty set the tone of the forum by stating what appears to have been in many people's minds recently: that as a community, Wauchope is responsible for its own safety. It is not the responsibility of the police to make people act safely.
"The police can only respond to events,” he said.
"When police go to a crime, it is their responsibility to ask who, what, where, when, but we do not pay them to ask why. That is our job.
"It is our job - not that of the police - to ask why some individuals lack respect for the life and property of others, why some people are driven to the margins at an early age.
"That is why this forum has called together all the parties - the police, our local member and residents - for we each have a part to play."
Mr Hegarty then presented the results of last year's crime survey.
"This is not a blame game exercise. We need to make a genuine attempt among all stakeholders to sit down and come up with practical, workable, and sustainable solutions to genuine safety concerns," Mr Hegarty said.
Next week the Gazette will report on the responses by police and Mr Stoner and issues raised at the forum.
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