The motion was moved by councillors, mayor Bronwyn Petrie and Greg Sauer, asking council seek funding to prepare the plan.

Cr Petrie said council was informed that following completion of the work on the Tenterfield Town Dam wall and construction of the new water treatment plant, it would then be allowed to request permission from Fisheries NSW and NSW Health to have limited recreation activities at the dam.

"The thing was always people won't be able to go swimming," she said at the meeting.

"But things such as canoeing, kayaking, fishing, hoping to have a master plan that had funding for a boardwalk around the edges, and going up to bird heights and things like that.

"We're there now, but there have to be things such as the safety installations, et cetera ... before we can get any people.

"We know obviously, Fisheries [NSW] are more than happy to have activity there, they're putting pressure on us, but things have to happen in an orderly fashion, in a safety fashion."

With the motion now passed, general manager Glenn Wilcox and council can now seek grant funding for a master plan.