That's a question Councillor Jess Jennings wants Bathurst Regional Council to start answering now.

He has asked that council devise a 200-year master plan for the city, to be "costed up" for the 2020-21 budget.

Council already has a number of master plans in place, including the Laffing Waters Master Plan, Duramana Road Master Plan and the George Park Master Plan.

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Others are still being developed, including the Bathurst Town Centre master plan, but there is no overarching strategy.

"The last 200 years, Bathurst has had a powerful impact on rural and regional Australia," Cr Jennings said.

"At the moment, we have a series of individual projects, single-issue master plans, all of which are valuable and excellent in their own right, but there is no overarching document that pulls all these key areas together to give us a vision for the next 100 years or next 200 years.

"...We need to define ourselves in a way that is attractive to the rest of the world for not just the next five, 10 or 15 years, but for the next 100-years plus."

Cr Jennings says Bathurst is on track to being "the museum and heritage capital of Australia", and an overarching long-term master plan could cement that title through the proper promotion of cultural facilities.

Other isolated projects that could be included in this vision are the future of the old TAFE building and old Bathurst ambulance station, health precinct planning, water security, the delivery of low to medium density housing and transport infrastructure.

Cr Jennings said he had already spoken to senior council staff about the cost of commissioning such a plan.

He was given an estimated cost of $300,000, split equally over a two-year period, to pull council's existing master plans together into one document.

Cr Jennings also wants a suitable financial allocation to engage external consultants to advise council on this master plan.