Councillor Warren Aubin had lodged a notice of motion to Wednesday night's council meeting, calling for water restrictions to be eased for a period of two weeks to allow residents the opportunity for a spring clean around their homes and gardens.

Bathurst has been under some level of water restriction for almost three years, and under level three can only wash hard surfaces for hygiene or safety reasons.

Cr Alex Christian, who recently called for an end to restrictions, was the only one willing to support Cr Aubin, even though he would have preferred a three-month period over two weeks.

"The Bathurst community has done such an excellent job in doing the right thing and there needs to be some sort of reward," he said.

"There are restrictions for everything ... you can't even wash your car on any given day, it's ridiculous. We're at about 102 per cent in the dam, it's overflowing, and I think we should reward the Bathurst community for doing the right thing."

Others, however, were concerned about the confusion the temporary change would cause, potentially leading to non-compliance after the rules reverted back.

Cr John Fry questioned this with the director of Engineering Services, Darren Sturgiss.

In response, he acknowledged that there would likely be some challenges, as was the case when restrictions were introduced.

"Certainly, in terms of compliance currently, it's quite good and has been throughout the water restriction period that we had in place, but certain education of the community initially took some time. I'd anticipate that would be the case if we were to change restrictions for a period of time," Mr Sturgiss said.

He also raised concerns about the status of current water projects and how drastically the water level can change in a short period of time without sufficient rain.

READ ALSO: Status of water projects has some reluctant to pause restrictions

Deputy mayor Monica Morse said council and the community had to value the city's water. She feared of "an open slather" if the restrictions were to change.

"It's just ridiculous to say, 'Oh, we've got a full dam, let's give it away', because I can assure you people won't know what to do ... it will be an open slather on people using the water because they think we are not valuing it," she said.

"We have to value our water."

Cr Hanger, who was the mayor when water restrictions were introduced, said residents have become used to the current restrictions and there was no reason to make any changes just yet.

"I know that the community has accepted odds and evens, it's just part of our psyche now, they know about odds and evens," he said.

"... I'm suggesting don't try to fix something that's not broken."

While councillors rejected a temporary ease of restrictions, they were advised that they could consider scaling back the current restrictions.

"Council could choose to, by resolution, change the level three restrictions to an alternate restriction level and make it continuous until such time that change is needed again," Mr Sturgiss said.

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