Armidale Dumaresq councillors will answer questions and elicit views from ratepayers on the dam’s future.

It follows a public meeting on Tuesday at the Armidale Bowling Club, at which ratepayers indicated a willingness to partly fund a $3.4 million plan to strengthen and retain the dam’s wall with an impost of $2 a week over two years.

The meeting, organised by the Armidale Dumaresq Ratepayers Association, attracted about 100 people.

They rejected outright a plan to lower the dam wall and reduce the water level in a bid to make it safer.

Instead, organiser Maria Hitchcock indicated the community would be prepared to help fund the preferred option of retaining and strengthening the dam’s wall.

Armidale Dumaresq general manager Glenn Wilcox said after the meeting: “There was a positive representation of the community’s opinions that reflected its concern for retention of the dam.”

No decision had been  made on the dam’s future and Council wanted the community to help decide the best ways of saving the dam.

The meeting was held after an edict from the NSW Dams Safety Committee to  Council to buttress the dam’s wall so it could withstand a one-in-100-year flood.

A report prepared for Council by consultancy company Arup looked at a number of options to address safety issues, including lowering the dam wall and reducing the water level.

But these were rejected outright at Wednesday's meeting.

Ratepayers unanimously supported retaining the existing dam as a recreational facility and as a place for public safety in the event of a bushfire.

Armidale Dumaresq’s strategic projects director David Steller told the meeting a non-structural solution to the dam wall, such as diverting the water to run around the wall, was not possible. 

While ratepayers preferred strengthening the existing wall, this was the most expensive option and Council would have to cut costs in other areas to finance the work.

“We already have $11 million worth of loans that we are paying, including one to clean up the site of the old gasworks,” Mr Steller said.

“Then there is a section of the community that wants Council to take out another loan to fund a new library.”

The free sausage sizzle will be held at Dumaresq Dam on November 16.