But it’s still a challenge.

The NSW Government, which is already in the process of adding new spaces to ease the car parking squeeze at Bathurst’s railway station, has now announced it will spend $1.2 million on a new car park at the hospital to achieve the same aim.

At the formal unveiling of the plan on Friday, both Member for Bathurst Paul Toole and hospital general manager Sue Patterson were asked if the new car park’s 60 or so parking spaces will be enough for the facility.

The answer, of course, is that it’s enough for now.

And in five years? A new announcement and a new car park is likely to be needed. 

But that’s the challenge of growth.

The NSW Department of Planning and Environment predicts Bathurst will be the fourth-fastest growing regional local government area over the next 20 years – behind only Queanbeyan, Maitland and Yass.

Bathurst added more than 780 new residents in 2016 alone and is predicted to welcome 12,000 new people to the city over the next two decades. 

That’s a lot of extra patients at the hospital, extra travellers on the Bathurst Bullet, extra cars on Eglinton Road and Hereford Street in the morning.

If the city is going to enjoy the benefits of such rapid growth – the vibrancy and fresh ideas that newcomers bring, the boom for tradespeople in the new housing estates of Kelso, Windradyne and Eglinton, the extra money flowing through the city’s supermarkets and its wider retail sector – then it is also going to have to accept the changes that this growth spurt is bringing.

From higher density in the CBD to upgrades to the major roads radiating out to residential areas, Bathurst is going to have a lot to think about in coming years.

In a small country town, you can get a park right next to the hospital and walk straight in.

In a city of 45,000, 50,000 or 55,000 (which is what is predicted for Bathurst in 2036), that option is not necessarily going to be available – even with a new car park being built. 

It’s the burden of popularity. And it’s a burden many country cities would like to take off Bathurst’s hands.