THE president of the Bathurst Business Chamber says she was disappointed with the economic stimulus measures revealed by Bathurst Regional Council.
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While welcoming "council's efforts to provide some relief to the business community", Catherine Fitzsimons said she had hoped for a better raft of measures to help struggling businesses.
A mayoral minute was introduced at the April ordinary meeting of council, detailing a series of fee waivers aimed at taking some of the pressure off businesses.
Council foresees an impact of almost $900,000 on the budget, resulting from loss of revenue and the stimulus measures.
Councillors have said the measures announced are just a starting point, and anticipate more will be introduced as council assesses the impacts of COVID-19.
Among the measures in council's current plan is a list of user charges, which are to be waived for businesses like restaurants, hairdressers and skin businesses.
Ms Fitzsimons said this is where she sees an issue.
"When we look at this list of proposed user fees and charges that are to be waived, a fair number of those are charges that I can't see anybody incurring at the moment anyway, because there is no outdoor dining, no skin salons, no temporary food outlets," she said.
"These are areas of the community I believe to a large extent are closed off now because of the restrictions ... so those fees wouldn't be being incurred, so waiving them is probably not amounting to much."
Council also plans to waive maintenance fees for eight sporting groups, something the business chamber is happy to see.
"That is very welcome because those community groups, they can't have any sporting activity at the moment," Ms Fitzsimons said.
The one thing the business chamber had been hoping to see in the economic stimulus measures from council was rate relief for businesses.
There won't be a reduction in council rates for businesses and residents, however, council has said it will be considering hardship requests from those who have been seriously impacted by COVID-19.
Councillors have also stressed that council relies on rates to provide services to the community and that, even if it did want to, council is not allowed to reduce or waive rates.
Ms Fitzsimons said the chamber hopes to continue its dialogue with council on this matter and other supports for businesses, as without more support many of them could be lost.
"For some of them an ongoing requirement to pay these charges could be crippling for them ... and mean that when we're looking to our town centre for a recovery, we don't have those businesses," she said.
"It's going to be much, much harder to get businesses in and get them to start than it is to provide some assistance to businesses to keep them going through this difficult period."
