On a recent travel stop I paid $3.50 for a 600-millilitre bottle of water. I can purchase 1000 litres of council tap water of equal quality for less than the price of a cup of coffee.

Apart from the environmental benefits of not using plastic, it makes sense to fill up with council water before hitting the road.

Residents are encouraged to spend the cost of a cup of coffee per week on water for their gardens – about 1300 litres. It is important to use water wisely, and there are many tips for wise water use on council's website.

During the dry summer months our lovely trees may occasionally require supplementary watering via a slow-release 20-litre container with a five millimetre drip hole in its base.

Private water tanks could help householders reduce the impact of water restrictions and maintain gardens in peak condition. Water tanks also free their owners from water restriction time constraints.

Using tank water for outside use could save approximately 40-50 per cent of consumption. If council were to ensure that every home built had at least 10,000-litre rainwater storage the security of our water supply would increase substantially.

This could be considered by council in the review of the Local Environment Plan and the Development Control Plan, which it is currently drafting for adoption in 2019.

In addition to inflow into our dams, Orange has supplementary measures to provide water security in the form of the Macquarie Pipeline, the stormwater harvesting scheme and access to bore water.

Council makes decisions as to which supplementary measure to use and when to use it by using the Decision Support Tool, whereby staff evaluates factors including expected rainfall, storage level and expected demand before deciding on a supplementary measure.

It would be beneficial for the process if the Orange community was allowed some input into decisions made using the DST.