Tamworth Regional Council (TRC) decided to drill the test bores near the Australian Equine and Livestock Events Centre (AELEC) in the hopes they could part of a solution to the city's drought problems.

Mayor Col Murray said the council has always had the view that its long-term water security would be made up of a number of different options.

"Things like Chaffey Dam, Dungowan Dam, the alluvial aquifer in the valley as well as looking at fractured rock aquifers," he said.

"I guess all this conversation started at the height of the drought when we were looking at almost dire consequences with our water security.

"Some years ago when Barraba was almost out of water before the pipeline was funded and built, we put some fractured rock aquifer bores in James Street and they worked really well, they kept the town in water over a very difficult period."

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TRC water and waste operations manager Dan Coe said he hopes the council can get more than 10 litres per second of water out of the bores.

"It would definitely be a minor supply, it's very variable until we actually do the drilling and the yield testing and find out how much water is there," he said.

"It would be supplementary, it would be of great benefit to the council and the city in drought conditions and would be able to supplement maybe 10 per cent of our water during drought conditions - but again we don't really know until we drill those two bores."

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