Tell me, what's not to like about $70m of investment in Bathurst? | Letter

We have a very reputable organisation wanting to spend around $70 million to build a new modern integrated medical centre in Howick Street, with a multi-storey car park.

A company that, since carrying out extensive research about Bathurst, has gone ahead and already purchased the proposed site (the otherwise empty old Clancy Ford site) for this development.

And it's being met with some opposition.

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According to the Economic Impact Assessment for this development (prepared by Location IQ), there are some important points that need to be considered.

They confirm it needs to be located in the CBD to better attract doctors and specialists. There will be around 393 permanent job opportunities, plus another 318 indirect job opportunities - that's 711 new jobs for Bathurst.

The same company has plenty of experience - building similar facilities in Orange, and the Gardens in Albury, which gets around 14,000 visits per week.

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If this was halved for our smaller population, say 7000 visits a week, and these people spent $20 a week locally, it would be a whopping $7 million per annum in added local shopping revenue.

The proposed wages (according to Location IQ) is in the vicinity of $24 million per annum.

However you look at these figures, it is just what we need to revive the Bathurst CBD.

Further, with St Vincent's Hospital closing, it will be our only private hospital, helping to take some strain off our already maxed-out public hospital.

We will finally have a medical centre that will have an area for specialists' visitation instead of Bathurstians having to travel to Orange or Sydney for treatment, as well as a facility to cater for our ageing population into the future.

But because the proposed development is six storeys high (over our normal limit of three storeys), heritage organisations are opposing the development being located on this site, claiming "it's not in the right position, let's move it". That's despite the fact the design is really quite appealing.

Well, we can't just "move it". We have one choice.

The people who are funding the $70 million have purchased this site and seek to get approval on this site, or it won't be built at all.

So we as a community need to either reject the development altogether or accept it for all the benefits it will give to our great city.

Those opposing this development could be showing an anti-small business bias or a lack of commercial understanding.

Maybe they have never owned or run a business, perhaps they don't own any buildings within the CBD, and that is the reason they tend to disagree with most DAs.

That is the only logical explanation for opposition to this project, because a comprehensive read through of the Economic Impact Assessment would show support for this development is a no-brainer.

So the question is: does Bathurst want this development at all? It's as simple and as complicated as that.