Since this time last year, several businesses have closed in the centre of Bathurst, including Kings' Antiques, Zenzali, and Mooi Plants on George Street alone.

Cosventure will soon be added to the growing list, while Bakehouse on Howick recently closed the doors at its central Howick Street location because owner Nathaniel Mason said the business simply wasn't viable there.

Chamber president Paul Jones, a businessman himself and owner of Moodie's Pharmacy in Howick Street, has been watching these closures for several years.

He believes they can be attributed to a vicious cycle.

According to Mr Jones, it all stems from the cost-of-living crisis, increases in electricity and subsequent problems with CBD lighting.

Price increases have meant that, for some business owners, it has become too costly to continue to light their premises outside of regular hours, according to Mr Jones.

This, in turn, results in the CBD being dark, uninviting and dreary, deterring shoppers from making their way into the city.

When people aren't shopping, businesses aren't making money. And when businesses aren't making money, they are forced to close their doors.

With these vacancies, more lights are then turned off, and the CBD becomes even less inviting, according to Mr Jones.

"When buildings are vacant, they sometimes turn the electricity off, so they actually have no lighting there, which then creates dark spots in the street and it doesn't look appealing," Mr Jones said.

"Then empty shops generally don't look appealing. And, if you walk around town, there are more and more empty shops."

Mr Jones would like to see creative solutions to ensure greater vibrancy in the city.

"You've got to work with the business owners and landlords of vacant buildings, and maybe [consider] putting appealing stickers up on the windows so it doesn't look as desolate when you have a vacant shop," he said.

As well as lighting concerns, Mr Jones said that a lack of parking in town has resulted in shoppers opting to avoid the city centre - a point that was also made by the owner of the now-closed Bakehouse on Howick.

"Parking in the CBD is a challenge, and one of the things they can do to improve parking is by doing line-marking," Mr Jones said.

"The simple fact of doing line-marking is that it increases parking density by 20 per cent, so instead of having four cars, we can have five cars."

In the time since the Advocate spoke to Mr Jones, it has been announced that three priority blocks in the CBD could be about to receive lined parking, following a $15,000 donation from the Bathurst business community.

This line-marking is proposed to be rolled out in Keppel Street between Seymour and Bentinck streets; Russell Street between Bentinck and William streets; and Howick Street between William and George streets.

Instead of lines being marked at a 45-degree angle, which is the standard for Bathurst, they will be painted at 60-degrees, adding to the number of allocated parking spaces in town.

The number of spaces on those three priority blocks currently stands at 167 and would increase to 210 under the proposal.

One of the people who was instrumental in generating funding for the lined parking was prominent businessman Peter Rogers, who recently told the Western Advocate that parking was a huge concern for the CBD.

As well as the need for dedicated lined areas, Mr Rogers said the proposed Bathurst Integrated Medical Centre would be essential to creating more parking spaces in the city.

The proposal for the centre is for it to be built alongside a four-storey car park, which would hold space for hundreds of vehicles - potentially up to 900 parking spaces if approved.

The development application for the medical centre was expected to have been lodged last year, but is now expected in the next couple of months.