NARRABRI Shire Council has agreed in principle to the voluntary planning agreement (VPA) put forward by Santos for its proposed Narrabri gas project.
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Councillors voted unanimously in favour of accepting the deal, which totals more than $14 million.
Of that money, $13 million will go towards contribution to the shire, while the remaining $1.5 million will go towards the maintenance of affected roads.
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The council's general manager Stewart Todd said the agreement was not yet finalised.
"At this stage of a VPA offer being put to council, the VPA document itself hasn't been drafted," Mr Todd said.
"Part of the negotiation we have had with Santos is that we will draft the initial VPA document itself as well they have agreed to that.
"Past this point we will start actually drafting the legal document itself that puts in these contributions and obviously the payment trigger points and other things that need to be in the VPA as well."
Narrabri mayor Cathy Redding said the size of Santos' contribution was not was important, rather the money's use was what counted.
"An important point in this VPA isn't the size of the contribution, but the fact almost 90 per cent of those funds are going back to the community for their benefit," she said.
"Where in comparison, a few of our other VPAs, with the mines, have gone to roads."
While the motion was carried successfully, some councillors voiced their concerns about resources for road upgrades.
One such councillor was Ron Campey, who said he was unsure if the amount of money set aside for roads in the VPA would be enough.
"It equates to about $60,000 a year for roads and $60,000 doesn't go far."
"It doesn't seem like a lot of money to me to maintain however many kilometres of road."
Mr Todd said the estimates had been carried out thoroughly by the council.
"Our infrastructure team have done the sums on the roads that are going to be affected by the project and the sums over the life of the project," he said.
"We were quite clear with Santos this amount will cover maintaining current road standards.
"So if they are gravel roads involved in the project, this money will pay that, if they want an upgrade well that's when we come back to the table.
"It's about maintaining the current service levels for the roads that will be expected to be affected."
