This would bring to our city a range of new and additional services, a variety of medical specialists and clinical facilities that would also boost the struggling CBD.

For those of us who have spent time in such places, and I certainly have over a period of some 24 years, the saving grace on many occasions was the proximity to a CBD.

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Such visits were, among other similar institutions, mostly at RPA and the Dr Chris O'Brien Lifehouse, both of which are conveniently located near Newtown's King Street.

This allowed us both to spend quality time outside the clinic while we waited on the processing of X-rays, blood tests or other similar prerequisites, in what often turned out to be a day-long ritual.

Being stuck miles from such a variety of facilities, services, restaurants, coffee and book shops, points of interest and shopping options was always tiresome and, at times, depressing.

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We had also spent countless hours in places away from CBDs like Orange, where all we could get was tepid bagged tea, cheap instant coffee, indifferent cafeteria or vending machine snacks and a variety of mindless magazines at least a year old.

I am of the view that we should embrace this CBD-based opportunity for the mental and physical wellbeing of those who unfortunately need to spend endless hours over months, if not years, attending such life-supporting centres.

A new medical facility on the former Clancy Motors site would not, in my view as an architect deeply concerned with heritage, intrude on or detract from Bathurst's existing heritage.

Nor would we wish to have a faux heritage building that would only diminish the value of existing heritage elsewhere in the CBD.