About 50 residents attended Thursday night's meeting called and chaired by Federal MP Mark Coulton after Australia Post sent more than 200 households letters advising them they would now have to pick up their mail from the post office.

Australia Post central west mail operations manager Peter King told the audience he was committed to restoring the mail service but it would not happen while posties' safety was at risk.

He said the most recent attack was the last straw after a "monitoring period" Australia Post began when youths threw rocks at a postie on April 22.

"This most recent letter was sent as a direct result of an incident that occurred when a postie was accosted by a group of kids who switched off her motorcycle and fiddled with it, and also allegedly took mail from the motorcycle," Mr King said.

"I've had four different posties in that area over the period and all have been subjected to some issues."

He added the information he had been provided suggested it was mostly the same group of children involved.

It was not long before residents began to vent their frustrations about crime and antisocial behaviour in general in their West Dubbo streets.

"You're saying the same group of children were responsible," one man said.

"How come the same group of children weren't brought to justice?"

Another said: "Why can't we get a mailman with a policeman with him to shut this sort of thing down?"

Some residents criticised police, suggesting that the West Dubbo streets in question had not been given a high enough priority.

It was a suggestion Superintendent Single rejected.

"I can tell you the police are out working very hard there in those areas and most of our work in this town is locking up juvenile offenders, we could put 100 police out there every day and it still wouldn't solve the problem," he said.

He said police carried out search warrants for drugs in the area a couple of times per week.

Housing NSW, which was not represented at the meeting, came in for criticism from several members of the audience, who suggested children from a small number of public housing residences were responsible for a bulk of the crime in the area, and not enough screening was done to make sure tenants were behaving themselves.

Superintendent Single said he could not speak for Housing NSW but understood they, like police, were in a difficult situation.

"They are bound by the tenancy tribunal," he said.

“They put people before the tribunal to evict them, they are very strict, the tribunal is loathe to put people out on the street.”

One resident said the problem “was so much bigger than the police”.

“It’s a vicious circle,” said one woman who also said she had seen a man hit in the back with a rock thrown by children only minutes earlier on her way to the meeting.

“The drug buying and selling, you can see it happening up and down the street, the kids running riot.”

She said a boy aged about eight wanted to fight her after she told him not to kick someone else’s bins over.

“He pulled his shirt off and said, ‘Do you wanna have a go miss?’ and I thought, ‘Are you for real?’,” she said.

Other suggestions were put forward at the meeting to help the residents get their mail, including securing a bus on a short-term basis to take residents who were elderly or had limited mobility to the post office to collect their mail three days per week.

The suggestion that appeared to receive the most support, which Mr King undertook to investigate, was changing the mail delivery time to very early in the morning, which it was hoped would be a deterrent to the children who were causing the problem.

The mail would be delivered a day later, it was explained, but it was an option.

Meanwhile, Mr Coulton said the incidents were symptoms of huge social issues that would not be solved overnight.

But he hoped in the longer term a program such as the Clontarf football academy that had had major social benefits for other communities in the electorate could be introduced at Dubbo.

“I have four in my electorate, Coonamble, Bourke, Brewarrina and Moree,” he said.

“In Coonamble, the petty crime rate’s dropped by half since they’ve come to town.

“In Moree, I saw one little fella that wasn’t even at school one day last year and the attendance of this kid now is about 85 per cent.

“That sort of thing is not going to get your mail delivered next week but that’s the sort of thing we’re going to have to do in the long term.”

He said in many cases it was difficult to make parents accountable for their children’s behaviour because the parents had given up on the children and they had been left in the care of extended families.

“While everyone is fed up to the back teeth with these kids, it’s a hell of a challenge for them to grow up.”

Yesterday, Australia Post released the following statement:

“We understand that residents are eager for their mail delivery service to resume and we are working with the local council to consider the proposed solutions raised at Thursday night’s community meeting. While Australia Post remains committed to the provision of safe, secure and reliable postal services to the Dubbo community, the health and safety of our people remains our number one priority and we won’t resume services if it puts our posties at further risk.”