FIRST Tamworth council expanded its offices to Manilla, Nundle and Barraba, but now they could be taking it all the way to Sydney.
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It comes following a decision by Wagga Wagga City Council to hire a $135,000 per year space on Macquarie Street in a bid to get more skilled workers, particularly engineers, on the books.
Tamworth is one council interested in potentially sub-leasing space from their Wagga cousins in what the mayor described as merely a "hot-desking" scenario.
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Col Murray said there could be an opportunity to base "high-level specialist staff" at the Sydney office in the future, but it would be on a much smaller scale to Wagga.
"We've got about about 37 engineers, Wagga has less than 10," he said.
"They've had difficulty in attracting engineers, especially engineers for design and all of their procurement project management.
He said Tamworth didn't have the same issue with the council training staff through the ranks and highlighted head engineers in Gunnedah and the Liverpool Plains were trained at Tamworth Regional Council (TRC).
The mayor said Tamworth's space in the Sydney office would be a "hot desk" scenario where councillors and staff could be based when having meetings in the big smoke.
But he highlighted there could be opportunities for resource sharing with smaller rural councils which might have similar difficulty attracting high-level specialist staff as well.
"This has never been done before and I think it's definitely worth exploring," he said.
The Sydney office expansion comes just weeks after the multi-million dollar regional relocation scheme, Evocities, folded.
The new scheme was announced through Wagga Wagga City Council, whose general manager - a former Tamworth council director - Peter Thompson, said it would remove "the all-or-nothing" choice that has deterred people from accepting regional jobs in the past.
"Unless someone has experience with a regional centre, it can be quite intimidating for a person that in order to accept a job they have to leave everything they have known behind," Mr Thompson told Australian Community Media.
Mr Thompson said the council is signing a one-year lease to trial the Sydney office, costing $135,000 each year.
Tamworth Regional Council was contacted for comment but did not respond.