THE North West’s multi-million dollar Australian Cotton Exhibition Centre (ACEC) at Narrabri is to shut later this month, just seven years after opening its doors with great fanfare.
But management hope the facility will re-open again, sooner than later, with expanded focus – possibly promoting coal and gas.
ACEC chairman, James Houlahan, said while Narrabri Shire Council had rejected proposals to continue functioning after almost 12 months of discussion and “the board will follow up on some recent and keen expressions of interest from organisations who share our vision for a new direction”.
Narrabri mayor, Robyn Faber, said the council had offered to take on the running of the building, but was not able to guarantee to keep the centre.
“Council believes the ACEC needs to close and re-open with a rejuvenated look which encompasses gas, coal, and all the other major industries we’ve got humming along locally,” she said.
“The facelift needs to encompass more than solely cotton to justify the centre’s running costs.”
More than 62,000 visitors, including tourists, school groups and cotton industry leaders and stakeholders, have visited the high profile centre in the past seven years.
Ms Faber said while the centre could once justify being purely cotton-oriented, soaring fuel costs for motorists 18 months ago put a dent in tourism and began the decline of tourist revenue which the centre had previously enjoyed.
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