Rising costs and the potential closure of their local detachment has South Huron looking into switching their policing away from the OPP.
South Huron council has asked staff to contact the Stratford police to see if they would be interested in taking over policing in the region, which is 45 minutes north of London.
The annual bill for the OPP in South Huron is nearly $2 million a year.
Coun.Ted Oke hopes that a deal with Stratford might lower that bill.
"We were going through the budget this year and noticed again policing costs are climbing," he says.
But it's not just rising costs that has Exeter looking elswhere for their policing.
Council doesn't want the OPP to close their detachement in Exeter, which could happen now that a new centralized Huron OPP headquarters is being built in Clinton.
The OPP have said offices in other Huron County towns would be turned into smaller storefront operations, but haven't told South Huron council exactly what they plan to do with this building.
"We don't know if the station will close or they're going to scale back to a smaller version. In the meantime, we have to look out for the residents of South Huron and make sure we're covering all bases," Oke says.
St. Marys recently switched from the provincial policeand at least two Bruce County municipalities have expressed interest in switching as well.
Stratford police are now responsible for St. Marys' policing.
