April Council Meeting News Report
Published on 17 April 2025
Bathurst Regional Council held an Ordinary Council Meeting on 16 April 2025.
Below is a media release collation from the meeting’s business papers.
8.1 Bathurst Showground Land Manager – Water Charges Royal Bathurst Show
Council has approved to waive town water charges, to a maximum of $10,000, specifically for irrigation purposes of the Arena area at the Bathurst Showground to facilitate the preparation for the upcoming Royal Bathurst Show, for the period 17.04.2025 – 4.05.2025 (inclusive).
The Royal Bathurst Show has long been regarded as the best west of Sydney and has
boasted an average annual attendance in excess of 30,000 people. The Show is organised and run by the Bathurst Agricultural, Horticultural & Pastoral Association (AH&PA), a charitable community organisation who, for 160 years, have been promoting agricultural activities. Council received a request from the Bathurst Showground Land Manager, regarding critical issues with their bore pump, which is currently out of operation. The Land Manager is not a body that operates for private gain. With the Royal Bathurst Show rapidly approaching, the Arena urgently requires irrigation to ensure the planned events can be safely conducted. The Showground Manager has indicated that reliance on town metered water for this essential irrigation may incur charges up to approximately $10,725, placing significant financial strain on the not-for-profit Showground Land Manager and the Bathurst AH&PA.
Without Council’s support, their financial burden would result in serious consequences for the Royal Bathurst Show, including:
• Potential cancellation of key Arena events due to safety concerns.
• Significant community disappointment.
• A substantial negative impact on attendance and local economic benefits from the event.
9.2.3 Bathurst Region Community Heritage Plan 2025-2029
Council has approved a 28-day public exhibition of the Draft Bathurst Region Community Heritage Plan 2025-2029 and Draft Implementation Plan 2025-2029.
As part of Council’s ongoing commitment to the region’s heritage and to meet its obligations to NSW Heritage, Council has drafted the next Bathurst Region Community Heritage Plan 2025-2029 (the Heritage Plan). The Heritage Plan aims to guide heritage management within the Bathurst Region and establishes the key objectives and associated actions for heritage management over the next 4 years. It provides the detail as to how Council and the community will protect, enhance and promote our heritage – buildings and places, the natural environment, people and projects, and their embedded stories.
In developing the draft Heritage Plan, Council undertook surveys, a community workshop, several face-to-face meetings with key heritage stakeholders and consultations with Traditional Custodians and First Nations groups. Results of these consultations were integral to understanding how well the community was aware of the services Council provides in relation to heritage matters.
The proposed new Heritage Plan is underpinned by the feedback received by the community and establishes 3 core objectives to protect, enhance and promote the Bathurst Region’s rich heritage in all its forms.
It is important for Council to have in place the Heritage Plan for Council to continue to attract grant funding from NSW Heritage for its local heritage management programs and for other heritage grant opportunities that may arise.
The 28-day exhibition period of the draft plan will enable additional feedback before the finalised plan is presented to Council for consideration of its adoption.
9.3.5 Windradyne Sales Update
At its meeting of 11 December 2024, Council resolved to open the Windradyne Land release to all local agents in an attempt to elicit further sales and also terminate the existing agency agreement with Ray White Bathurst.
On 13 March 2025 Council released the balance of lots to all agents with seventeen local and one non-local agent contacted directly with Council’s agency contract for selling the remaining lots, with no application criteria required.
To date, three agents have returned signed agency contracts with these registered private agents being:
1. Ray White Bathurst (previous sales agent) – local agent;
2. Wilton Land and Housing Pty Ltd – non-local agent; and
3. Raine & Horne Bathurst – local agent.
At the time of writing this report, Council has:
• Exchanged, but not settled, 18 lots.
• Accepted offers, but not exchanged, 4 lots.
9.3.6 Draft Community Strategic Plan 2025 – 2045 For Public Exhibition
Council adopted the recommendation to place the draft 2025-2045 Community Strategic Plan (CSP) on Public Exhibition for 28 days.
The CSP is a key element of Council’s Integrated Planning and Reporting (IP&R) Framework that informs and ensures Council’s long-term, sustainable, and community-focused decision making. It identifies the community’s main priorities and aspirations for the future, and plans strategies for achieving these goals.
The draft CSP has been developed with crucial community input. From August 2024 – February 2025, Council asked the community to share their thoughts on the future of the Bathurst Region and over 2,800 residents participated, contributing close to 6,000 suggestions.
Following exhibition of the draft document, and consideration of submissions received, the final documents are to be presented to Council's June 2025 meeting for endorsement.
9.3.7 Delivery Program (2025-2029), Annual Operating Plan (2025/26), Detailed Budget (2025/26) And Long Term Financial Plan (2025-2035) For Public Exhibition
The following budget documentation has been prepared with regard to Council's tight financial circumstances.
• Delivery Program/Annual Operating Plan 2025 - 2029,
• Long Term Financial Plan 2025 – 2035,
• Revenue Policy including the Fees and Charges for 2025/26,
Council has approved that this suite of financial documents be placed on public exhibition for a minimum of 28 days, ahead of formal approval.
As Council is required to provide additional services, provide and maintain infrastructure and is restricted in its ability to increase its income (due to rate pegging imposed by the NSW State Government) each year, Council is constantly looking for potential savings across all areas. Especially given, as further work is taken on, it will become increasingly difficult for required service levels to be met.
Some cost saving areas Council has considered include:
• Efficiency savings in energy and other areas (Council has installed solar energy generating systems on Council owned facilities and LED street lighting),
• Different styles of service provision to reduce costs,
• Options to increase revenue, and
• Cost saving and revenue opportunities identified under the Pathway to Sustainability.
Council's budget is framed around not increasing the general rate above the approved rate pegging limit and secondly, the requirement to have nil or limited impact on the service levels currently provided to the community. To achieve balanced budgets, while allocating resources to asset renewals for Council’s existing infrastructure, Council can no longer sustainably deliver current service levels. As a result, Council will be unable to fund additional resources into maintenance of buildings, parks and recreation services or road maintenance. New infrastructure assets such as further upgrades to Centennial Park and Adventure Playground will not be possible without provision of grant funding.
In the future, Council will need to cut services and/or obtain approval for an SRV to return Council to a sustainable position.
A special rate variation (SRV) would also need to be considered in budget deliberations for future years to reduce asset maintenance backlogs to sustainable levels. Any such decision will be subject to future discussions with the community regarding service levels and a review of Council’s operations over the ensuing future.
Additionally at the Wednesday 16 Council Meeting, Council resolved to fix the annual fee paid to Councillors to the maximum determination made by the Remuneration Tribunal and that Councillors be paid superannuation at the prevailing rate.
Council is presenting the following documents for public exhibition:
• The Delivery Program and Annual Operating Plan (which includes the 2025/26 Revenue Policy and the Organisation Chart)
• The Long-Term Financial Plan
Council will place these documents on public exhibition for a minimum of 28 days commencing 22 April 2025 until 20 May 2025. Following exhibition and consideration of submissions received, the final documents are to be presented to Council's June 2025 meeting for final endorsement.
9.4.2 Rural Cemetery – Future Management
The matter of Council providing ongoing cemetery services to the various cemeteries that the NSW Government deems to be under the control of Council, has been a significant concern to Council since the enforcement of the recent NSW cemetery reforms.
Council has endorsed the recommendations and proposed actions contained within the Director Engineering Services’ report concerning the future management of rural cemeteries within the Bathurst Region that are under Council’s control and referred the various costs that will be required for their management to the draft 2025/26 Operational Plan. CCNSW will additionally be invited to meet with Councillors, and the Mayor and/or the General Manager have been given the authority to determine any requests to allow burials within rural cemeteries.
Recommendations follow extensive community consultation recently completed by Council. As part of the consultation, a YourSay survey was opened for all members of the community to comment on rural cemetery concerns, and letters were sent to all affected rural village progress associations. In addition, the matter of rural cemeteries has been raised during village meetings and information has been made available on Council’s website and through media releases. The consultation period commenced on 25 October 2024 and concluded on 3 December 2024.
At the close of submissions, Council received a total of 44 written submissions directly on the YourSay website, plus an additional 29 written letters posted directly to Council.
Whilst majority submitted responses requested that Council continue to provide rural cemetery operations and allow new burial reservations, it is of concern, as has been previously reported, that Council does not have detailed spatial data plans or actual site surveys of the cemeteries. This prevents the formulation of required mapping and data establishment that would assist in record keeping requirements and planning for the ongoing management of the rural cemeteries. Council also does not have the original plans showing the layout of the cemeteries, and due to their age, ground surface conditions often do not provide indication of an existing interment underground.
Unfortunately, from the discussions to date with Cemeteries and Crematoria NSW (CCNSW), the NSW Government have made it clear that regardless of the site access issues to some cemeteries, regardless that there appears to be other organisations operating and maintaining cemeteries, regardless that Council has no staff or resources to administer cemetery regulations, and regardless that Council does not have any records or past operational practices of some cemeteries such as Turondale Cemetery, Dennis Island Cemetery, Wattle Flat Catholic Cemetery etc., Council will still be deemed the cemetery operator and will be the responsible authority for all ongoing cemetery compliance requirements imposed by the NSW cemetery regulator.
CCNSW believe that Council is not presently meeting regulatory requirements for the maintenance and management of its cemetery sites. This is not disputed, as the reform requirements will incur a cost to Council that has not been previously funded and no financial assistance has ever been offered by the State Government to assist in implementation of the cemetery regulation requirements which are now in force. The fact remains that maintenance to provide safe access and cemetery upkeep will be required to the 14 sites in the Bathurst Region and this will come at a cost.
The following are rural cemetery management recommendations, looking to resolve the issues as efficiently and affordably as possible and to ensure that future cemetery operations will be physically possible to deliver (See full Council report, linked below, for detail on these recommendations):
Recommendation 1. Removal of Selected Cemeteries from Council Management
Recommendation 2. Survey of cemeteries and set out new grave site spaces
Recommendation 3. Ground survey of new proposed burial spaces
Recommendation 4. Change current practice of choosing site locations for burials
Recommendation 5. Permitting Double Depth Graves
Recommendation 6. Construct niche walls
Recommendation 7. Employment of a cemetery administration officer
Recommendation 8. Employment of maintenance team
Recommendation 9. Formal contract requirement
Should Council be willing to continue providing new reservations within the Region’s six current active rural cemeteries, and to ensure regulatory compliance is met, anticipated upfront costs of $278,000, covering land surveying and creation of appropriate cemetery administration & maintenance positions will need to be met, followed by annual operational costs estimated at $357,000 (Plus CPI). It is recommended that funding be provided in the 2025/26 Operational Plan to enable the resources needed to properly manage its Rural Cemeteries going forward.
Council has been informed that the average number of reservations and burials that occur at Bathurst’s rural cemetery sites is in the vicinity of 5 reservations and 3 burials per annum. Income derived from reservations averages in the vicinity of $3,000 per annum.
For information, should Council wish to make the rural cemeteries inactive and not accept new interments, annual funding in the vicinity of $265,000 per annum would still need to be sourced, plus an initial one off plant purchase of $138,000 to meet the regulatory requirements of providing ongoing maintenance activities to the rural cemeteries and villages under a caretaker licence.
9.5.1 Ohkuma Wings of Hope Tour 2025
As part of the ongoing sister-city relationship between Bathurst and Ohkuma, Japan, Bathurst recently welcomed a delegation of six students and three official delegates from Ohkuma. The group arrived on Sunday 23 March, at the Ohkuma Garden on Stanley Street, where the students were introduced to their host families.
The group was led by three representatives from Ohkuma, two Town Council employees and a teacher, as well as a Japanese tour escort. One special member of the delegation was Mr Shuichi Shiga, the grandson of Mayor Shurou Shiga of Ohkuma, who signed the Sister City Agreement with Bathurst’s then Mayor, Anne Ashwood, on 25 March 1991. Mr Shiga currently works for the Ohkuma Town Council.
An official welcome ceremony was held on Monday 24 March, at Council Chambers hosted by Mayor Cr Robert Taylor. The ceremony was attended by councillors, host families, students, members of the Sister City Working Party, and Council staff.
Accompanied by two Sydney-based guides, this visit marks the 34th year since the signing of the official Sister-City relationship agreement between Bathurst and Ohkuma, continuing the long-standing relationship between the two cities.
Following a week of guided tours of Bathurst, time spent at Denison College – Bathurst High Campus, and gold panning at the Bathurst Goldfields, the group departed for Sydney on Friday 28 March.
Media contact: Genevieve Green Media and Communications Officer