Bathurst Region Community Heritage Plan

Draft Bathurst Region Community Heritage Plan 2025-2029 now on Public Exhibition

As part of Council’s ongoing commitment to the region’s heritage and to meet its obligations to Heritage NSW, Council has drafted the next Bathurst Region Community Heritage Plan 2025-2029 (the Heritage Plan). The Heritage Plan aims to guide heritage management within the Bathurst Region and establishes the key objectives and associated actions for heritage management over the next 4 years.

The Heritage Plan responds to the Planning Priorities contained in the Bathurst Local Strategic Planning Statement and the objectives of the Bathurst Community Strategic Plan. It provides the detail as to how Council and the community will protect, enhance and promote our heritage – buildings and places, the natural environment, people and projects and their embedded stories.

The Draft Plan is on public exhibition from 22 April to 4pm 20 May 2025. Written submissions can be made in the submission box below, or emailed to council@bathurst.nsw.gov.au

What consultation took place?

In developing the draft Heritage Plan, Council surveyed the community, held a community workshop and carried out meetings with key heritage stakeholder groups. The purpose of the consultation aimed to:

• Gauge the community’s understanding of Council’s heritage management practices,
• Gauge the community’s current values as they relate to heritage matters,
• Understand the community opinion on heritage related challenges, and
• Discover how achievements of the Heritage Plan can be better shared with interested parties.

Importantly, Council sought to hear from key heritage stakeholder groups AND members of the community who may not be part of a formed heritage group but may be interested in how heritage is managed. Surveys were made available online, and hard copies were available from the Council Civic Centre and the Bathurst Library. 100 paper copies were also distributed, at random, into letterboxes in Raglan, Kelso, Eglinton, Windradyne and to residential renting tenants in the CBD.

The full results obtained from all consultation methods are available in the Heritage Plan Engagement Summary in the Document Library. The Summary includes an assessment of the results into actionable items for consideration of adoption in the next Heritage Plan.

What were the outcomes of the consultation?

The results of the survey identified areas for improvement in the way that Council communicates to the community what heritage services and resources are available and what actions in the Heritage Plan are being achieved generally.

Snapshot of Survey Results:

• 61% of survey participants were NOT part of a formed heritage group, suggesting that over half of the responses were from people with an interest in heritage but were perhaps not well informed about heritage matters
• 50% knew about the Heritage Plan before doing the survey
• Only 35% of survey participants did not know that there are heritage guidelines available on Council's website (an action in the Heritage Plan is to have these resources available)
• 54% did not know about Council's free heritage advisory service (an action in the Heritage Plan is to provide this service)
• 59% did not know about the Implementation Plan (which periodically outlines how the actions in the Heritage Plan have been achieved)
• 81% were interested in receiving updates about key heritage achievements

The community workshop and meetings with key stakeholder groups built on the results of the survey and sought specific actions that Council could take against the challenges that the community was most concerned with.

Evident in the community’s responses was a burgeoning anxiety around the management of development that pushes the boundaries of current allowable height and residential density, a future which Bathurst needs to reckon with as its population increases.

Responses also expressed the community’s desire to hear a variety of stories about the Bathurst region, representing people from diverse backgrounds and identities, and wanted those stories to be shared with the community in a variety of methods.

The community saw value in using Bathurst’s heritage as a means to attract tourism both through the sharing of stories and the conservation and adaptive reuse of heritage buildings. There was continued encouragement for Council and the community to adaptively reuse heritage buildings, particularly the former TAFE building, as an opportunity to generate economic activity and income.

They also recognised that in taking the very actions that they suggested, that suitable funding would need to be provided.

The community raised a number of actions that should be taken to manage heritage. These actions were assessed against the actions in the 2021-2025 Heritage Plan to isolate new actions that could be included in the update.

In assessing the feedback received, three core objectives emerged that were designed to protect, enhance and promote the Region’s rich heritage in all of its forms. These objectives are:

1. Appreciate and share heritage
2. Manage Change
3. Activate Heritage

Actions from the previous plan and new actions were organised to correspond to these objectives, situating all actions under four subheadings.

To view the actions that Council and the community can take toward managing heritage in the Region, view the copy of the Draft Bathurst Region Community Heritage Plan 2025-2029 in the Document Library.

How will the actions that have been taken be reported?

Historically, Council has reported on the actions that have been taken via the Implementation Plan. This is a report that obtained updates from all participating Council departments and Community Heritage Groups and explained what was being done to achieve the actions in the Heritage Plan. This has been, and will remain to be, a useful tool to report to Council and the NSW Government.

However, the results of the consultation has identified that while many members of the community were interested in knowing what was being done, they had not heard of the Implementation Plan and/or were disinclined to read it because its format as a report was inaccessible even to those within a heritage community group.

The community showed a preference for updates being provided via social media, direct emails and newsletters.

How can I keep up to date with what heritage actions are being taken?

The best way would be to follow Council’s social media handles on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

You can also subscribe to Council’s Heritage Plan YourSay page which will enable updates to be sent to your email directly.

Council may, from time to time, insert news or reminders of heritage services in its Ratepayer’s newsletter and monthly newsletter. To sign up to receive the monthly newsletter, please click here.