Council is working with a landscape architectural consultant to review the neighbourhood shopping centres at Boundary Road, Tamworth Street, Victoria Street and Myall Street.

In October, Cr Etheridge called for a report to be prepared on the beautification of the shopping clusters.

“I think the shopping precincts are looking old and haggard – I don’t like that word but they are – and it’s time we stepped up and did something to help them,” she said at the time.

“That’s got nothing to do with the business owners, I just want the place looking a bit more cosmopolitan.”

In a report on the beautification, Dubbo Regional Council director infrastructure and operations Chris Devitt said across the last three years council had spent $10,000 per year towards a refurbishment program, which included funds for the installations of street furniture such as seating and planter boxes.

However council has now engaged a landscape architectural firm to prepare concept designs for each site.

The goal is to improve the liveability of the commercial centres while enhancing the local character and history of the areas. The community will also be consulted to see what they would like to see at the site.

“The neighbourhood shopping centre beautification proposals will address the aesthetic and functional nature of the streetscape in order to maintain a contemporary standard of amenity at these sites, and provide a complementary benefit to any shop redevelopment or refurbishment that may occur in the years ahead,” Mr Devitt said.

The project will initially cost $40,000 for the landscape architectural firm. A further $20,000 will be allocated for each site in the 2018/19 budget estimates. The exact cost of the work will be determined once the construction plans are finalised.

“Some of the neighbourhood shopping centres have been developed to include areas of publicly accessible streetscape, which is in both private and public ownership such as at the Tamworth Street, Victoria Street and Myall Street centres. In these locations a collaborative approach may be necessary with affected owners in order to develop and implement the design concepts which achieve mutually agreed objectives particularly in regard to cost sharing where privately owned areas are part of the beautification proposal,” Mr Devitt said.

The proposal will go before council at the February meeting on Monday night.