Armidale Regional Council general manager of Business Scot MacDonald said with Day Zero now 578 days out and Malpas Dam 47.1 per cent full and rising, it was definitely looking a lot more promising.

"We've just recorded the weekly usage figures from last week and they're reasonably stable," he said.

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"We're pretty happy at this stage that people aren't taking the rain as an excuse to return to their old water habits. I suppose it's a case of "so far, so good".

"We're on level five restrictions and both residents and business seem to be sticking to that pattern, which is great.

Mr MacDonald said council was looking back at level four restrictions, but would take a few things into account.

"We'd be looking at the BoM models and what they are forecasting over the next four months," he said.

"At this stage, they're only round about the average. We're conscious that we're not through summer yet and still have a couple of hot months to go.

"We want to keep an eye on people's consumption patterns, there's no doubt about that, and we wasn't to see the dam levels keep rising. I guess you could say it's on watch and on review."

Mr MacDonald said he expected council would look at the situation closely over the following fortnight, but emphasised whatever decisions were made in the future they would be made with caution.

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