Lisa Brown, who operates a horse stud north of Bendemeer, labelled the nearby refill situation a "joke".

"It has had more out of order issues than it has had working," Ms Brown said.

"For those of us who live on a property and trying to water our stock, as we don't have access to town water, it is extremely hard.

"The drought is hard enough, but now the council can't guarantee the refill station will be working."

When contact by The Leader, council said the Bendemeer refill station had been out of order due to a manufacturer fault

"The manufacturer has been on site this week and has fixed this fault meaning the station is now back online," a council spokesperson said.

Kerry Ryan lives opposite the Attunga refill station on Palmer Street and is appalled by the lack of community consultation about its location.

"We have trucks lining up across the road at all hours, with their engines still running," she said.

"The whole house smells like diesel. My husband has emphysema and it's impacting his sleep.

"I don't begrudge people getting water, but to have it that close to a house, there should have been some form of consultation."

TRC said community consultation for the stations was not required, as they are located on council land. However, a spokesperson said they would work to decrease the impact on nearby residents.

"The station in Attunga is experiencing extremely high usage due to its close locality to Tamworth and the lower level of water restrictions currently in place there," they said.

"Council is working with high users of the Attunga bulk water refill stations, such as water caters, to minimise the impact of increased traffic at this refill station including investigating options around limiting access hours."