Part of the former Cootamundra Local Area Command (LAC) will form part of the Riverina Police District, with Wagga Wagga’s Superintendent Bob Noble to be district commander.

Superintendent Noble said there were two Sergeants and six Constables stationed in Cootamundra, but there would be an extra four Constables next year.

“We have never intended to take resources from Cootamundra,” Superintendent Noble said.

“My personal position is not withdraw resources, it’s always looking at opportunities to put more more in.

“What we want is local police responding to local emergencies.”

Cootamundra only boasts one rural crime investigator currently.

That officer will be joined by an extra Detective Sergeant and Detective Constable to form a rural crime investigation squad.

“We all know there’s plenty of work to do, rural crime can be under reported, it’s important we get runs on the board and I’m pretty confident we can do that,” Superintendent Noble said.

Cootamundra will lose a Superintendent and crime manager, but the crime management unit will remain to focus on crime prevention.

“There’s concern that these officers and resources would be subsumed but there’s no intention of drawing these resources into Wagga,” Superintendent Noble said.

He said an Inspector would take the role of officer-in-charge with a person to be appointed next year.

That Inspector will be given significant discretion to allocate resources and focus on local issues.

Superintendent Noble said the extra officers would mean there would more proactive patrols by police to deter and detect criminals.

The re-engineering will also see a regional enforcement squad which deployed to any town in the Riverina.

“There’s significant resources here at Wagga that we can move over to Cootamundra, Gundagai or Tumut.”