WILL the last to leave Evocities please turn out the lights?
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What started as a joint campaign harnessing the collective strengths of Bathurst, Orange, Dubbo, Armidale, Albury, Wagga Wagga and Tamworth to promote regional living to Sydneysiders has now shrunk to a five-city campaign - and it may go even lower.
Wagga and Armidale councils have both voted in recent days to leave Evocities and Orange City Council is reconsidering its position after just recently agreeing to a one-year extension of its Evocities membership.
Orange has already left the campaign once before, apparently thinking it could better promote its city alone, before returning to the fold just a year later. But that backflip speaks volumes for the benefits of Evocities, and there's plenty of data to prove the success of the campaign.
Since 2010 there have been almost 50,000 jobs promoted through the Evocities website and more than 3600 families have relocated to one of the seven cities.
Almost 500 of those families have made Bathurst their new home, helping make it one of the fastest growing centres in regional NSW. We have seen massive changes in our city, and huge investment in our future.
In the past few years alone we have seen the development of a new harness racing complex; the construction of a $1.5 million world-class BMX circuit; new rugby union and rugby league fields built on Hereford Street; the acquisition and establishment of the Chifley Interpretive Centre next to the Chifley Home on Busby Street; the opening of the new adventure playground; major upgrades to Carrington Park in conjunction with a long-term deal with Bathurst Panthers to play NRL games here each year (pictured); and upgrades for other sporting facilities.
Plans are well under way to build a second racing circuit on Mount Panorama and a go kart track at the top of the Mount.
New residential areas in Llanarth, Eglinton and Laffing Waters have exploded and those parts of town are unrecognisable compared to what was there a decade ago.
Few regional centres can come close to that level of growth so it might seem odd that the one city that needs Evocities the least is one of the few cities still committed to the campaign's survival.
But Bathurst gets the meaning of stronger together, even if it doesn't have to.
Some other cities might be about to learn its meaning the hard way.