WaterMart owner's frustration after federal election pre-poll venue opens without notice

Pre-poll for the federal election began on Monday morning at Shop 2, 91 Rankin Street, opposite Bernardi's and very close to the corner of a busy intersection.

WaterMart occupies the shop next door and saw a negative impact on trade from day one.

Owner Brad Batten said the thing that bothered him most was that he received no notice of the pre-poll centre plans until it opened.

"[I found out] Monday morning when I opened my shop and I found all the billboards out the front of the shop," he said.

The business has been impacted in number of ways, but the biggest factor turning customers away is the inability to find parking nearby.

This is essential as WaterMart stocks a lot of heavy, bulky products.

Election signage has also impeded access to the shop.

"Half of our Monday customers couldn't get to the front door because of the billboards across the council verge, but also the parking out the front of the shop," Mr Batten said.

"We've had constant vehicles parked out the front with billboards on them, as well as the pre-polling workers and stuff who are parked there. It is two-hour timed parking out the front, but the parking patrol aren't monitoring it at the moment.

"... We have limited parking on Rankin Street already, but with all of this going on we've got next to zero."

READ ALSO: See how Calare's candidates are preferencing votes at the federal election

He said his business wasn't the only one affected, pointing to Brabhams Outdoor Power Centre across the road.

Mr Batten is also concerned about the pre-poll centre being so close to the busy Rankin-Durham intersection, fearing that it could lead to an accident.

"Due to the limited parking you've got people parking over at [Bernardi's] and elderly people who aren't very quick coming across the road at a fairly busy intersection. To be honest, I'm waiting for someone to get skittled by a car on the intersection here because it is such a busy intersection," he said.

Mr Batten has reached out to Bathurst Regional Council and the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC).

Council's general manager David Sherley said council was not involved in discussions around selecting a pre-poll venue and was unaware of any public consultation taking place prior to the office location being selected.

Council has contacted the AEC about the concerns raised by business owners and is continuing to monitor compliance around parking and signage.

"Council has requested candidates to remove signage from public infrastructure as soon as practical. Council will impound signage where there is an immediate danger or obstruction to the public," Mr Sherley said.

An AEC spokesperson told the Western Advocate of the challenges it has faced to secure venues that don't impact other premises.

"Ideally, we'd love to be able to secure all voting venues in every town around Australia that doesn't impact other venues and/or businesses around the area for both the early voting period and on election day. However, with the scale and complexity of the temporary operation we run, and the staffing and premises required, it's just not practical," they said.

"This centre was the venue available to us to lease in the local area and we must manage competing priorities. All venues are secured on short notice as we have to be ready to run a federal election on an unknown date and secure over 8,000 voting venues.

"For the early voting period there is simply not sufficient venues of the required size sitting vacant across Australia, or Bathurst, for the required time period for us to secure for a rolling ten month period."

The spokesperson said the AEC has spoken to the party workers to ensure they are not blocking entry to any surrounding businesses and/or taking up parking in front of the pre-polling location.

A second pre-poll venue will open at Windradyne's Westpoint shopping centre on Saturday, May 14.

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