More than 5000 Year 11 students from Bathurst region schools have gone through the Rotary Young Drivers Awareness program since its inception 10 years ago and the lessons learned in those sessions have no doubt helped moderate their driving habits.

For many of the participants, it is the only access to professional driving instructors they will receive and organisers work hard to keep the cost of taking part to a minimum.

RYDA has now been recognised as leader in its field, being named the winner of an Excellence in Road Safety Education Awards at a national ceremony.

The Bathurst program took home the Toyota Community Supporting Excellence Award for its ongoing contribution to young driver safety.

Surely this is the sort of program our whole community should be proud of, and one that we should be happy to fund to ensure its future.

But RYDA organisers will again be forced to go cap in hand to Bathurst Regional Council next year to seek a fee waiver for use of the Mount Panorama pit complex to run the 2019 program.

The fee waiver is about $7000 a year and it’s strange that council would baulk at such a cost, given the benefits.

More strange, though, is the fact it has been councillors – rather than council staff – who have shown a degree of concern about funding RYDA.

To council’s credit, the funding has always been forthcoming but, in recent years, it has only been after far more haggling than should be necessary.

And funding in recent years has been on a year-by-year basis only, despite RYDA asking each time for a three-year guarantee.

Hopefully, the election of a new council in September will mean a change of fortune for RYDA when the request inevitably comes before council in 2018.

We can again expect to see a report from council staff recommending that Mount Panorama fees be waived for three years and – hopefully – the new council will sign off on that deal.

That will provide certainty for RYDA organisers, help schools ensure their students are available for the program and keep the cost of the course at a reasonable level.

It should be the easiest decision councillors make in 2018.