Councillor Warren Aubin said he would bring a notice of motion to Bathurst Regional Council's September meeting proposing a pause for a period of up to four weeks to give people an chance to do a "spring clean" around their properties.

READ MORE: Spring break: Aubin wants to press pause on water restrictions

He needs the support of his fellow councillors to help make it possible, but it appears that won't be forthcoming.

Mayor Ian North said he is happy to hear debate in the chamber, but at the moment he is reluctant to vote in favour of the idea when other water projects have stalled.

"We're still battling with NRAR (Natural Resources Access Regulator) regarding Winburndale Dam, as far as their interpretations of the usage of it. We're still battling with the state government in relation to our water harvesting program. We're ready to go, we would have liked to be months and months into the build of it, and we still have not been able to [start]," he said.

"The solutions we want to put in place, they're still not in place yet and that is the problem we've got.

"I can see where he is coming from, but in the same regard, that requires a policy direction change and we also still have not had the state government support we need as far as our water harvesting and other water initiatives moving forward."

Councillor Graeme Hanger, who was mayor when Bathurst introduced water restrictions, is standing by the rules as they currently are.

He acknowledged that there is a lot of water in storage at the moment, but believes the majority of the community would have no problem with leaving the restrictions as they are.

"We don't need to look at changing it just at the moment," he said.

READ ALSO: Water conservation should be our natural inclination | Letter

There are also concerns that a temporary pause could cause confusion when the rules revert back.

Cr Jacqui Rudge said this, along with the need to conserve water ahead of summer, was why she wouldn't support short-term changes.

"I don't think it's the right time. I understand that we have enough water at the moment and I appreciate that, but I really think it brings undone a lot of the hard work to get people to come into line with water restrictions," she said.

"I think we also need to get these Winburndale pipeline issues sorted and we also need to get our water harvesting organised as well, so I'm hesitant in that regard. We don't want to start bringing the hard work undone with the water restrictions and then people getting used to not having some sort of restrictions."

She said she would consider scaling back restrictions to level two.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content: