For high-end retailers like Chaos & Karma on Summer Street, getting Victoria Pass reopened is the key to a retail revival in the Colour City.

Mum and daughter owners, Helen McBurnie and Jordan Cummins, said that while the reality is the sudden announcement in March created only a 20-minute detour via Bells Line of Road, the overall impression of the word “closure” is what matters most.

Specialist shops retailing prestige art, gift, and homeware items are not just good for the local CBD, Helen believes, but also act as a magnet for metropolitan families looking to relocate to the west.

“We’re basically a boutique, we sell items ranging from clothes, accessories, giftware, and we’ve been in business for seven years today, actually!” Helen told Orange City Life.

“I would say things are tight but, to be honest, everyone is in the same boat at the moment,” she added.

With years of local business expertise, Helen was recently enlisted to council’s strategic development committee to help come up with ideas to support our main street.

“One simple thing that can be done to improve the economy is to fix the road. Regardless of the reality, people in Sydney at the moment think that they either can’t get out here or, if they can, they can’t get back due to fuel shortages and the like.”

She said that the sudden and unexpected long-term closure of the main route from the eastern seaboard to western NSW on Sunday, March 8, was felt almost immediately in the region.

“A lot of our trade is tourist trade from Sydney and the Blue Mountains, and it was felt from around the time of FOOD Week (March 20–29),” Helen believes.

“Autumn is a good time of year to see the Colour City, after summer and before it gets too cold,” Jordan added.

Helen said that, particularly for discretionary items sold by specialist retail outlets in the precinct bounded by Anson, Byng, and Sale Streets, things are noticeably tight.

“People don’t have the money, the disposable income for retail as a whole, and also our demographic is very different from the large department stores,” Helen said.

“The customers start here and then go to stores like Jumbled, The White Place, Hawkes General Store, and Miss Mary Mac’s... we send them around the block.”

She also argued that the strength and variety of a city’s retail centre adds not only to the overall impression of a community, but to its attractiveness to future potential residents.

“A lot of the appeal of a town is based on visitor’s perception of the CBD and, if they’re thinking of moving here, also the housing, schools, and other facilities.

“Boutique stores are an attraction to a town: it’s a mining town and it adds to our prosperity, people will think about moving here, if they see there are a wide variety of retailers in the town,” Helen explained.

There is only so much that local government can do in the current situation, she says, with tourist campaigns – such as the Central NSW Joint Organisation’s 'Other Ways to the West' campaign promoting alternative tourism and access routes – only stop-gap measures.

“It’s a 20-minute detour, but it seems a lot more to Sydney people. The local councils are doing everything they can to expedite the work, but the quicker we get it repaired, the better,” Helen said.

“If we were in Japan or China, it would have been done overnight, but all the priorities from our governments are agenda-driven by interest groups; for everyone else, it’s always a patch or band-aid job,” she concluded.