Liberal councillor Jack Antcliff believes Lake Macquarie parks and reserves fees are making the city "unattractive" for event organisers and risk driving business into neighbouring council areas.
The North Ward representative raised his concerns at Lake Macquarie City Council's (LMCC) meeting on Monday night when discussing the Fees and Charges Report 2026-2027.
Under the proposed charges, a district-level venue like Webb Park at Redhead would rise from $867 per day to $902. A new yearly $150 event licence fee (500 to 5000 attendees) would also be introduced.
If a monthly community market were held at Webb Park, the hiring cost would be $10,974 for the 2026-27 financial year.
Meanwhile, the City of Newcastle (CN) charges $129 per day for an event at a standard reserve like Rowlands Park at The Junction with a crowd of up to 2500 people. CN also charges a one-off yearly application ($156) and assessment fee ($194).
In comparison, hiring Rowlands Park for a monthly market for one year would cost $1898.
Lake Macquarie's premier green space, the lakeside Speers Point Park, charges a daily hire fee of $1,444. Under the proposed new fees and charges the hiring cost for Speers Point Park would rise to $1,502, plus the event licence fee of $150.
Cr Antcliff said LMCC's fees and charges for its parks and reserves do not reward loyalty and repeat business.
"My concern here is that if we're unattractive, events pack up and they go elsewhere," Cr Antcliff said.
"Now, a vision for me for this city is a vision of a city that's vibrant. I talk about this concept of 'always on' when it comes to tourism, and that is when people come here, there's always something on, whether it's markets, cultural activities, sports, music, whatever it may be.
"That's where you build capacity in your industry. If we don't build capacity in our industry, then we won't get the regular visitation."
Cr Antcliff subsequently proposed an amendment to trial a 50 per cent reduction in fees for one year.
"Let's try and incentivise people to come and run their events here," he said. "Let's trial it for 12 months. Let's come back in 12 months and let's take the feedback.
"If we brought one or two more events to this city and they each generate $50,000 or $100,000 in economic impact, well, hasn't that justified itself?"
Labor North Ward councillor Brian Adamthwaite introduced a second amendment to discuss the fees and charges report in more detail at a workshop.
"It's something we could work on, come up with a great solution and set the target for the future," Cr Adamthwaite said.
"I wasn't so comfortable with the idea of giving a 50 per cent discount for a year and seeing how things went, because people would be less likely to want to come back if it suddenly went up by 50 per cent."
Cr Adamthwaite's amendment was successful, with only Labor's Keara Conroy and Madeline Bishop and Independent deputy mayor Colin Grigg in opposition.
"My thoughts are to cost recovery in the commercial space, so I probably differ from some of the other councillors in that view," Cr Conroy said.
"As long as we're competitive, I don't think we need to be the cheapest in the market. In the end, a commercial event in our public space is making money from a community facility and I don't think the general ratepayer should have to take that cost on.
"We expect other businesses with a permanent presence in our city to pay their business rates."
The councillor workshop has since been scheduled for Monday, as the council's fees and charges must be finalised by June 30.
Lake Macquarie council has granted 244 events event licences in the 2025-26 financial year, of which 92 were held in parks and reserves. Park hire licences generated about $50,000.
In 2024-25, community event licence hire fees brought in $105,000 from 321 events. This also included venue hire fees from the Warners Bay and Rathmines Theatres.
This followed $89,877 in 2023-24 from 242 events and $79,230 from 406 events in 2022-23.
Increased heavy vehicle mitigation (HVM) compliance by NSW Police has been a factor for Lake Macquarie City Council in the past year.
HVM includes the installation of bollards, gates or sandstone blocks to restrict vehicle access to heavily populated pedestrian spaces like markets, festivals and concerts.
The Newcastle Herald reported last October that the Morisset Show was threatened with closure by police due to HVM non-compliance.
The council also installed sandstone blocks on the Warners Bay and Toronto foreshores.
It's understood that the council has 32 parks that comply with HVM usage and another seven will be compliant by June 2027.
