Mount Canobolas funding first aim of Orange-Blayney-Cabonne council alliance

Orange City Council voted on Tuesday night to support the formation of a board to work on sharing resources and equipment across the three councils.

Blayney council backed the scheme on Monday night while Cabonne is due to vote on it at its next meeting on Tuesday July 28.

Cr Kevin Duffy said he was concerned about how effective it would be.

"These alliances become very bureaucratic and a bit time wasting and those type of things, that's my only concern about that," he said.

"Being the larger council it usually finishes up costing someone some money. We need to be fully aware of that and keep an eye on it."

However, mayor Reg Kidd said he was confident it would work.

"I can guarantee you it won't be bureaucratic," he said.

"There will be two meetings a year and the first meeting we will decide one of the things we have in common, [what] we've got to work to doing something about, is Mount Canobolas.

"We've all agreed one of our priorities will be Mount Canobolas and getting funding for maintenance work.

"It will not involve any money it will possibly involve saving money."

The scheme is based on the now defunct Wellington, Blayney and Cabonne strategic alliance.

Blayney councillor David Somervaille said they should consider forming it as an entity similar to Orange360 to avoid it ending up like the WBC or Central NSW Councils (Centroc).

"The problem with both the WBC and Centroc was that they couldn't get grants for the projects they supported," he said.

"As an entity the new alliance would be able to apply for project grants, obtain joint procurement and tendering and would allow for tighter scheduling of works."

Cr Somervaille said the proposed $22 million bike paths plan for the region was an example of a project that the new alliance could have applied for grants.

"If we had this entity in place last year it could have been the body that applies for those grants as it's about developing a network of bike paths across the three council areas," he said.

Blayney mayor Scott Ferguson said council's experience as part of the WBC strategic alliance would place it in good stead when it came to negotiating with Cabonne and Orange.

He said it was not a precursor to a merger.

"These strategic alliances are really good business and the state government are very happy to see this forming," he said.

"The idea that this is a precursor to a merger couldn't be further from the truth.