Before introducing council CEO Susan Law to the podium, Chair of the Regional Growth Advisory Committee, Councillor Peter Bailey, said a recent investment boom was worth about $475 million to the region, and Armidale's rental vacancy rate was now less than one per cent.

While acknowledging her own relatively recent to this area, Mrs Law said it had become brutally apparent that council needed a real strategic vision for the coming decades and future generations.

"All too often councils see the business community as a good source of rate revenue and those pesky service users, but actually we would like to see you, in the future, as part of the ecosystem of the Armidale region that grows the economy of this region," she said.

"We need to make some brave decisions that break out the Armidale community from its conventional thinking that might have been holding it back. Peter raised it this morning. Why has Tamworth gone ahead?

"How many times have I heard since I have been here that, in the last decade, the population of Tamworth has doubled while Armidale's has remained the same?"

Mrs Law said it was true to say council was making those hard changes that had to be made, to provide businesses and the community with consistency, certainty and confidence in the council.

"Currently, the council faces two main challenges. The first is what I call finalising the merger of the Armidale-Dumaresq and Guyra shire councils. It is absolutely true that banging together two unviable, financially unstable councils does not create a single financially sustainable council. The work still has to be done ... in order to get that financial sustainability.

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"Our second challenge is about bringing our community together for a regional approach. It's not just the council that needs to work around building that cohesive community, and overcome that lingering resistance to the merger.

"And looking at what has happened elsewhere is sobering. ABS statistics show that Armidale is falling behind other regional cities such as Orange, Bathurst, Yass and Goulburn."

She said the critical roles that could only be provided by local government were leadership, strategic direction and good governance that was unrestrained by vested interests.

"We have the capability, and in fact the mandate, to think and position ourselves, and the community, beyond today. To be future facing. We're in, what I call, the intergenerational business," Mrs Law said.

Cr Bailey thought it was not about looking at the past.

"It's about saying, 'We're going to develop a structure and a platform to go the next 20 years, and if we do that now, and that will mean some pain, then we'll lay council's foundation so the city can grow and prosper and so can the region," he said.

"I don't think we should be judged by the standards of past councils. We have a good management team, we have a good council, and there are always challenges when you get inside a democracy with 11 people.

"But by and large, most people realise the structure we have is too large. Armidale's had a great capacity to listen to those with the loudest voices, not the greatest number of voices. What we've got to do is consult with groups like this to lay the foundations for the future."