THE first of Bathurst Regional Council's cultural and community facilities will reopen to the public on Wednesday, after being closed for over two months.
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Restrictions around museums, art galleries and libraries were eased by the NSW Government on Monday, permitting them to reopen, however it was up to the individual operators to decide if they would.
Bathurst council has chosen to stagger the reopening of six facilities that were forced to close in March.
The first of them to reopen is the National Motor Racing Museum (NMRM) and the Bathurst Visitor Information Centre, both opening their doors on Wednesday.
When the NMRM reopens, people can expect to see a variety of cars from Australia's motor racing history, with a few changes to be made over the coming weeks.
"We've still got quite a few of the cars from the 12 Hour and 24 Hour exhibition that we opened in February, plus all of the regular stuff," manager Brad Owen said.
"We are working towards a new special exhibition for later in the year and obviously with the aim that hopefully in October we'll have a race crowd to come and see it.
"... Movement's been a bit restricted. We've had a few [cars] leave and we've got a few queued up to come in over the next four to six weeks."
The museum will be able to have up to 100 visitors inside at any one time.
"We do have a lot of space to spread out, so certainly 100 people at the museum is not going to feel like you're crowded in," Mr Owen said.
Other precautions will be put in place to ensure safety, including appropriate social distancing and recording contact information for all visitors to the museum to assist any contact tracing that might be required by NSW Health.
Like Mr Owen, mayor Bobby Bourke is also pleased to see the museum reopen.
"It's great to see that it is open again on Wednesday," he said. "There's a lot of race fans out there."
More facilities will reopen in the coming days.
- Australian Fossil and Mineral Museum - June 4
- Bathurst Rail Museum - June 5
- Bathurst Library - June 9
- Bathurst Regional Art Gallery - June 9
- Chifley Home - Undecided
At this stage, no date has been set for Chifley Home to reopen and Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre (BMEC) will also remain closed for the time being.
For the facilities that will reopen, there will be safety measures in place.
These include limited visitors, increased cleaning and disinfecting, providing hand sanitiser, installing signage and practising social distancing.
