The three towns will be under this new measure from Monday, April 5.

Tamworth Regional Council's director of water and waste, Bruce Logan, said the decision was made when Chaffey Dam hit the 50 per cent mark.

As of Tuesday morning, the dam is at 56.7 per cent.

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While it means eased rules for the locals, Mr Logan said the top priority was still to "encourage the community to continue to serve water and only use water in a sustainable way".

"Our focus is on improving the security and reliability of our supplies, not predominantly Tamworth, Moonbi, and Kootingal, but all of the supplies Tamworth council provides," he said.

"There's plenty of water around at the moment so we continue to source our water from the Peel River and Dungowan Dam.

"That'll be the case for a few weeks at least, in relation to the Peel River, and then we will source our water from Dungowan Dam and given that we're moving into more cooler temperatures, we would imagine that we'll be able to supply from Dungowan Dam for the foreseeable future, or through winter, anyway."

When asked if he believed this was the end of the drought, Mr Logan said while 56 per cent in Chaffey Dam was great, there was "plenty of room for more water in the dam".

"Given the conditions we're in, if you spoke to a farmer he would consider that would be the end of the drought," he said.

A council media spokesperson said the following were the rules under permanent measures:

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