The initiative encourages Sydneysiders to move to regional cities including Bathurst, Dubbo and, until last week, Orange.

Orange councillors decided that there had been too big a drop in the number of families who were moving to the city – which has invested in the program since 2010 –  and so the investment was no longer worth it.

“I don’t believe the state government is fair dinkum about getting a reasonable amount of people into regional areas,” Orange councillor Russell Turner said.

“They’ve got to put in millions of dollars and that’s still a drop in the ocean compared to what they’re spending in Sydney.”

Bathurst Regional Council signed up, in mid-2015, for another four years to the initiative at a cost to ratepayers of $60,000 in the first year, increasing by $5000 for each of the subsequent years.

And Bathurst councillors have stuck by that decision, despite Orange dropping out.

“We’ve certainly done very well out of Evocities, but then we are in very close proximity to Sydney,” Cr Monica Morse said.

But she did add that the closure of a major employer earlier this month may have affected the Orange councillors’ decision.

“With things like Electrolux closing, perhaps they were thinking ‘we don’t need any more people in Orange’,” she said.

Cr Jess Jennings, who voted for Bathurst to stay with the Evocities campaign, said Orange, unlike Bathurst, has its own privately-run tourism entity, Brand Orange.

“Membership of that is double that of the [Orange] business chamber,” he said.

“They obviously see more [of a benefit] to supporting their own efforts than [with] a cohesive campaign.”

He said Bathurst was receiving a “bigger and better exposure” with the campaign than what it could do on its own.

When considering the city’s future with Evocities in April 2015, Bathurst councillors received a report from environmental, planning and building services director David Shaw.

His report said the seven Evocities had collectively welcomed 2115 new households (as at the end of December 2014) since the campaign launched in September 2010.

He said this had generated more than $200 million in additional annual direct spending for the participating regional cities.

In response to Orange’s decision, Evocities chairman and Dubbo mayor Mathew Dickerson said now was the wrong time for a city to stop its involvement.

“To convince people to move from their home is a long-term project, it’s not like advertising a new hamburger. When you advertise a new hamburger you expect sales to go up by 20 per cent that week,” he said.