Steve Semmens, known as The Persuader, works closely with Bathurst business owners who are looking to build on their success and take their businesses to the next level.

Over the past 12 months, he has found that businesses are struggling to find skilled staff, with the problem intensifying during the past six months.

And it's all because people are unable to find a place to live in Bathurst.

"I've heard from a number of people that it's difficult to buy houses here; they're quite expensive now and we don't have the stock," Mr Semmens said, adding that finding a rental is even harder.

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He went as far as to call the situation a crisis.

"A number of the businesses I coach are unfortunately in a situation where they can't grow at the moment until they can get some good people on board," he said.

"It doesn't seem to matter what industry, to get the staff with the right experience they need to go further afield than Bathurst, so places like Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, etc, and attract people here. The problem is, those people want to rent or buy houses and at the moment that is pretty tough to do because we don't have enough supply.

"... It is a crisis. We could probably find people that can suit these particular roles, and they might be in things like cyber security, different trades - electricians for example, I could think of 30 electrician jobs we could fill tomorrow if we had the housing to put them in."

As a result, businesses are stalling when they could be growing.

"As a business coach my job is to help businesses grow, and the only way we can grow is by putting on more people, but we can't do that if we don't have places for them to live," Mr Semmens said.

In his opinion, this crisis requires a whole of government response.

He said it was not only about making it possible to attract new people to the regions, but also about addressing the need for affordable housing for people who have found themselves homeless.

"The levels of government really have to look at their strategic planning in relation to regional growth," he said.

"Can the state government, for example, assist the councils in growing much better than we have in the past? If there's that much of a need of houses, why are there not more developments approved for expansion?"

He also wants to see Bathurst Regional Council expedite any plans it has for new housing estates to meet the needs of the city.

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