Bathurst Regional Council launches New Resident Guide, presents stats that show where new residents are coming from

And many of our new residents start off as tourists brought to the city by one of its major events.

The information was presented at a recent launch for a New Resident Guide produced by council, which contains practical information on Bathurst's facilities as well as first-hand accounts from those who have made the move.

Council's business development officer David Flude told the crowd at the launch that internal migration - as opposed to overseas migration or a natural increase through births - remained the major source of the city's population growth.

Those new residents, he said, are principally coming from local government areas on the outskirts of Sydney.

A slide that Mr Flude presented to the crowd showed that 511 people had moved to Bathurst from the Penrith local government area, 441 from Blacktown, 434 from the Blue Mountains and 376 from the Central Coast from 2016 to 2021.

He said the figures showing tourism to Bathurst by local government area in 2021 - in which Penrith was number one, Blacktown was number two and the Central Coast was number three - showed a clear trend.

"You can see the correlation is quite clear - our tourists become our residents," he said.

Mr Flude said council had worked hard to tie the city's events together more closely and to give tourists to the city information about potentially living, working and investing in Bathurst.

Mayor Robert Taylor told those at the launch that new residents to Bathurst are moving to a city that is booming.

Major developments in the city, he said, included the $200 million upgrade to Bathurst Hospital; Simplot's $65 million expansion and the Great Western Highway upgrade from Kelso to east of Raglan.

Proposed major developments include the $28 million capital works at Stannies; the Bathurst Integrated Medical Centre in the CBD; Tremain's Mill redevelopment in lower Keppel Street; and pumped hydro project near Yetholme, he said.

"In addition, Bathurst now positions itself as the new IT hub of the Central West, being home to Spatial Services, who have partnered with council on the Bathurst Digital Twin Project, the only one of its kind in regional NSW; NSW Government Cyber Security Vulnerability Centre; and the CSU-IBM collaboration to establish a Client Innovation Centre which will see 300 jobs created over the short term," Cr Taylor said.

"This business success has created a shortage of skilled employees in the region which council is hoping to partially address with the launch of the resident attraction program, providing information to prospective residents and the benefits of working and living in Bathurst."

To help accommodate these new residents, Cr Taylor said works had started on the Windy 1100 residential subdivision in the city's west and work was underway "to fast-track the Laffing Waters precinct" north of Bathurst.

Mr Flude said the New Resident Guide had been printed and produced in Bathurst and he encouraged any real estate agents who were attending the launch to take as many copies as they wanted.

He said Bathurst's real estate agents and its visitor information centre staff were typically the first point of contact for those who eventually end up moving to the city.

The New Resident Guide contains information on the city's sporting grounds, museums and galleries, parks and transport, as well as the villages of the region.

In one of the firsthand accounts from new residents, the Craufords, previously of Castle Hill, say "life has slowed to a more manageable pace" since they moved to the region.

Mr Flude said council had also created a video about the benefits of living and working in Bathurst.