MURRAY Bridge residents are calling for action after police reports of escalating crime in the town.

McCue’s Bakery owner Rodney McCue is one business owner sick of cleaning up after youths every morning at his Adelaide Road shop.

“The amount of stuff that happens around my shop at night time, I get young kids out there who sit at the table,” he said.

“They’ll take posters off and rip it into bits and throw it over the floor ... one night they tried to set fire to a table outside ... they throw stuff up on my roof ... it’s persistent ... annoying stuff.”

Murray Bridge police officer in charge Senior Sergeant John Gigger said curfews were imposed on young offenders who were detected doing the wrong thing.

But, he needed members of the community to help identify offenders. “It’s understandable that members of the community don’t want to get involved, that’s why we try and get evidence from the scene,” he said.

Snr Sgt Gigger said a closed circuit television project operating by Christmas would help the situation.

“The whole idea is to assist police in the identification of offenders,” he said.

Murray Bridge council community safety officer Heather Courtney said there would be seven CCTV camera sites throughout Murray Bridge.

“We’re waiting on the last little technical bits like licences and agreements with various places,” she said. “Hopefully it will be up and installed within a month.”

Ms Courtney said police would monitor the feed from the cameras, which would be installed by Chubb Security.