Narrabri Target closure: Council will use petition to lobby other big stores to fill the gap

Mayor Cathy Redding has been in talks with Target Australia managing director who confirmed that despite a community petition to save the essential store, the decision was final and would not be 'driven by short term profits and returns'.

"While I am disappointed, I am not surprised at the response from Target," she said.

"Tagret Australia had made their decision based off their own criteria to determine which stores would close.

"The criteria does not consider individual community situations such as the lack of accessibility of these essential items without these stores in our regional towns."

A community petition with 1300 signatures showed 97 per cent of people wanted the store to remain open.

Another 94 per cent were happy for the Target Country store to become a small format Kmart instead.

The information that was gained in the petition will now be used to lobby other businesses to fill the gap left by Wesfarmers, Cr Redding said.

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"While we can't make the decision for Wesfarmers, we certainly can use our strengths to open our shire to new investments from other interested businesses," she said.

"Be that local businesses looking to fill the gap or businesses looking to establish in our shire."