Will council clean up the old Regent Theatre? We'll find out next week

The old building on the corner of Kable Avenue and Brisbane Street screened its final film in 2008 and has been gathering dust since.

The building's maintenance has been an outstanding issue for council's Heritage Working Group since last year. The group has agreed to keep the agenda item open until it is "satisfied".

The working group says the Regent Cinema building is a significant heritage listed building which needs to be preserved, and raised the issue of mould being visible from the outside with Tamworth Regional Council (TRC) back in September 2023.

But the local government said since the building is unoccupied "there is nothing Council can do" about the mould, according to meeting minutes from the working group.

It is unclear what this means in regards to TRC issuing an order for maintenance and repairs more generally.

"The owner has been in contact with Council and has advised that a builder is being engaged to complete some repair works on the building exterior and pest control options to eradicate/reduce the pigeons are being investigated," the minutes also say.

The theatre recently attracted the ire of locals disgusted by the number of dead and decomposing pigeons stuck in a metal netting placed on the outside.

Councillors will vote on the Heritage Working Group's recommendation to "investigate the possibility of issuing an order" to maintain the site during their next meeting on Tuesday, July 9.

Here are a few more important items on council's agenda:

A report going to councillors says a review of waste charges "has indicated that some property owners have been paying annual waste charges for green waste kerbside collection services they have not received."

A total of 1591 properties have been charged an extra $137 over the last two years for a green waste collection that was supposed to roll out in 2022.

"Council's contractor responsible for supplying the kerbside collection services was not informed of the [2022] changes and particularly the increase in properties that should now receive 3 kerbside services," the report says.

"As a result, the contractor did not make the third, green lid bin, available to property owners newly added to the urban area, and did not start offering 3 kerbside services."

The report says TRC could roll out the extra green waste collection service to those properties, but doesn't recommend doing so "because there is insufficient capacity at the Forest Road Waste Facility to process further green waste".

The report also cites that lack of capacity as the reason why towns like Manilla and Barraba don't have kerbside collection for green waste.

Once councillors accept the report, TRC will issue more than $200,000 of credits across the rates notices of the 1591 affected properties.

Councillors will also vote on whether to adopt several arts and cultural strategies which have completed their public exhibition period of 28 days.

These include the Tamworth Region Museum and Archive Strategy, Creative Communities Plan, and Public Art Strategy.

The last of these strategies follows a commitment councillors made in May to increase annual funding for commissioning and maintaining public art as the number of murals and monuments multiply across Tamworth.