Bathurst has lived under some form of water restrictions since November 2018, helping to conserve water as the Chifley Dam level got dangerously low.

Even though Chifley Dam has been full, or close to it, since September 2020, Bathurst residents and businesses are still limited in their water use.

Deputy mayor Ben Fry, who was only elected to Bathurst Regional Council in December, said it is time to not only consider easing restrictions on water use, but to completely change the framework.

He believes the current framework isn't as effective as it could be, given restrictions were imposed before the trigger point was reached.

The Chifley Dam water level was just below 60 per cent when restrictions were imposed in 2018, much higher than council's actual trigger point of 40 per cent.

READ MORE: Mayor uses his tie-break vote to approve water restriction plan

Cr Fry has already approached council's Engineering Services department to start revising the framework.

"We've got a lot of water coming out of the sky in many regions across Bathurst and I think it's probably time we revisit the water restrictions framework that we operate in," he said.

"I'm not flying the whole 'derestrict Bathurst right now' flag, but if we design a new framework that subsequently puts us under a new restriction rating, then that rating would apply.

"What I'm looking for is more so a framework that takes in a lot more controls and climate functions than we traditionally take in. Traditionally, we use dam levels as trigger points and that might guide what restrictions to apply.

"Last time it didn't work. Every time we'd get close to a dam level trigger, we actually just ratified restrictions earlier than the triggers. The fact that we were even anticipating triggers and acting on that means that they weren't working."

When asked if the dam being at 100 per cent capacity was enough to ease restrictions, Cr Fry said it was one of several factors that had to be considered, not the only one.

Among those factors would be El Nino, La Nina, and the season.

"What we want to do essentially is design a framework that fits our climate and for, whatever reason, I think a lot of people know that our climate is getting warmer and drier as the years go on," he said.

"... We're going through these cyclical changes as we move forward. We just need a more robust system that takes into account more climate controls than has done in the past."

Cr Fry expects staff could present a new framework relatively soon.

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