July 18, 2022
Kumbia Neighbourhood Watch will apply to the Coopers Gap Wind Farm Community Fund for a grant to install two CCTV systems in the town.
One system will monitor the children’s play area and the 48-hour free stay parking area in Apex Park, and a second system will monitor the licence plates of motorists passing through the town along Bell Street.
Both systems will wirelessly relay real-time video to Kumbia’s police station.
The project was outlined at a meeting between the officer-in-charge of Kumbia Police, Senior Constable Todd Armstrong, and members of the Kumbia Community Alliance and South Burnett Regional Council in Apex Park on Monday afternoon.
Snr Const Armstrong told the group the CCTV idea had been under discussion in the community for some time, and Kumbia Neighbourhood Watch had begun preparing a grant application for the Community Fund’s September grants round.
Preparations included seeking quotes from two local electrical firms to install and maintain the systems, and obtaining permission from Council to let the group carry out the project, as well as obtaining trenching assistance from Council to connect power to the cameras when they were installed.
The meeting was told that if the grant application was successful, the project would improve safety for children using the park’s play area.
It would also help link the town into the Queensland Police CCTV system, which is able to track cars using number plate recognition technology as they travel along major highways.
Snr Const Armstrong said the project had won favour with the recently formed Kumbia Community Alliance, a forum where members of the town’s various incorporated associations meet informally to swap news about their latest projects and see if they can assist one another.
This is a similar model to Proston’s Round Table, which has now been operating successfully for several years, improving communication between different groups while avoiding the need to incorporate a new one.
Mayor Brett Otto – who attended the meeting with councillors Scott Henschen, Danita Potter and Kirstie Schumacher and SBRC Manager of Facilities and Parks Leanne Petersen – said another problem Kumbia was facing at the moment was declining enrolments at Kumbia State School.
He said this seemed to be caused by a lack of after-school care for the children of working parents but he believed the situation could be reversed if a solution to this could be found and CCTV might be part of that.
Cr Schumacher congratulated the group on taking such a forward-looking view.
Ms Petersen suggested one item the group might like to consider in their plans was a regular maintenance check – monthly or quarterly – to ensure the CCTV systems remained fully operational.
The meeting concluded with a thumbs-up for the project from everyone in attendance.
