A group of Niverville residents presented a petition with 500 signatures to Town Council on Tuesday calling for a study to determine if an independent police service would be feasible for Niverville.

Niverville Mayor Myron Dyck says the petition also had quite a few online signatures. He notes in 2016 Council spent considerable time looking at future policing options with the knowledge that when Niverville reaches 5,000 residents the cost of RCMP services go up. He adds census numbers in May showed Niverville had not yet exceeded 5,000 residents.

"Now going into November 2017 we will have a planning session. We now know where we are with population, 4,800, so technically Niverville would not have to do anything until 2021 but council has been talking about policing, knowing we have a growing community and we want to come out with a strategic plan in November to say this is how we look at doing it for the next year, two, five years and going forward."

Dyck says the petition called for a feasibility study to be done by November of this year and that might be a bit tight, but policing is very important to council and the petition will be brought to their committee meeting so they can decide how to proceed. He adds approximately 20 people showed up to the public hearing on Tuesday which was great to see.

"We all have busy lives and for them to take their time and to give the effort to this, they should be commended for that. They obviously care about the community and they want different things to happen and that is wonderful so we thank them for their time and for what they have done."

Dyck says they aim to get back to the people who presented the petition in a timely manner.