Dubbo City Council (DCC) has thrown its support behind the Evocities concept and given its strongest indication yet that it would like the program to continue for another four years.
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Dubbo is one of seven cities in the Evocities program and has been one of the most active participants.
All nine councillors at Monday night's DCC Finance and Policy Committee meeting voted in favour of continuing the Evocities program between July 2015 and June 2019.
They have recommended mayor Mathew Dickerson and general manager Mark Riley be authorised to negotiate and finalise a Memorandum of Understanding on behalf of Dubbo City Council.
DCC has already budgeted the cost of the program for the next four years.
Across the first five years of Evocities, each of the seven councils contributed $60,000 a year and council had budgeted the same amount for 2015-16 but has allowed an additional $5000 a year every year up to $75,000 for the final year of the agreement, 2018-19.
Councillor John Walkom said an estimated total of 2115 households had relocated to the seven cities across the five years while the media from the program had reached an audience of 60 million.
The estimated additional annual spending as a direct result of Evocities was $200 million.
Those figures made it an easy decision to continue with the program, according to councillor Tina Reynolds.
"For the amount of money we are putting it, between $60,000 and $75,000 over the four year period, it is not a lot of money. We are getting more value out of it than we are putting into it," she said.
Councillor Allan Smith said some smaller communities had grown to dislike Evocities because of the programs' success but said that shouldn't stop council from continuing it.
"Evocities under any stretch of the imagination has been successful. So successful that some small communities don't like it because it's doing its job," he said.
"It's attracting people out of the cities to the regional cities and from there people may flow to smaller communities but at this stage they are coming to Evocities."
The biggest threat to the continuance of Evocities could come from other councils. Armidale Dureresq councillor Margaret O'Connor said in a letter to the Armidale Express that she wanted to see more evidence of the impact of Evocities before agreeing to an extension of the program.
At Monday's Finance and Policy meeting, Councillor Greg Mohr asked what financial impact one council withdrawing would have.
Mr Riley said each of the remaining councils would face an additional $10,000 a year to cover the withdrawal. However he said one council leaving could undermine the whole campaign.
"If someone withdraws it really throws the whole thing in jeopardy," Mr Riley said.
"The members of Evocities are the major inland cities in regional NSW and if someone withdrew that would be very disappointing. We would really have to go back to the drawing board."