Premier Gladys Berejiklian finally laid to rest the contentious mergers policy on Tuesday, saying country amalgamations that remained before the courts – including Bathurst and Oberon and the proposed merger of Orange, Cabonne and Blayney – would be dumped immediately.

However, the state government intends to push ahead with Sydney-based mergers and has no plans to tear apart mergers already in place, such as Dubbo and Wellington.

Oberon anti-amalgamation campaigner Marj Armstrong welcomed the premier’s announcement, saying it should have come a long time ago.

“It’s what was right, it’s what Oberon wanted and what Oberon needed,” Mrs Armstrong said.

“John Barilaro, Oberon thanks you very much.”

Mrs Armstrong said the Oberon community remained confident the town could grow and prosper into the future and said council elections expected to be held later this year would be the starting point.

She said she was not interested in adding to her 12 years’ service on council but hoped plenty of Oberon locals would contest the poll.

“We’ve always been a conservative council but maybe in future we have to start operating more like councils like Bathurst and start borrowing money to make the town bigger and better,” she said.

“I think we need young people to come in and stand up for Oberon and work for our community.”

Mrs Armstrong said the Nationals – and particularly Bathurst MP Paul Toole, who drove the mergers agenda as local government minister – had a lot of work to do to win back Oberon’s trust.

“I’m not sure he can live long enough to do it,” she said.

Bathurst mayor Gary Rush said the announcement would finally bring clarity to the affected councils.

“As a result of the announcement we now know what we need to do and for Bathurst Regional Council that is to get on with providing services, amenities and infrastructure to cater for an expanding city and region,” Cr Rush said.

“We will continue to seek the prosperity which will allow us to be financially sustainable into the future.”

Cr Rush said the announcement was timely given that Bathurst had begun its budget preparations for 2017-18 and would now have some certainty in that planning.

He said it would take a brave government to seek further council mergers down the track.

“Equally, though, the challenge that does exist for some councils is to make sure that they continue to provide quality services and amenities and are financially sustainable with scale and capacity or it may well be that the government has to take responsibility to provide for those councils,” he said.

“The solution may well be a merger with another council.”