Property owner raises concerns over 'unapproved' COVID testing clinic in old hardware car park

The emergency testing clinic In Orange was set up in response to high demand from local residents on the first day of the seven-day snap lockdown in July. (ABC Central West: Mollie Gorman)

A property investment company is considering whether it will take legal action against the Western NSW Local Health District for setting up an emergency COVID-19 testing clinic in the car park of a disused hardware store in Orange.

The five-lane testing centre was set up on the first day of the snap lockdown of the Orange, Blayney and Cabonne local government areas in the NSW central west last month.

Thousands of locals had turned out for a swab, overwhelming the existing clinics, so authorities including the Orange City Council and NSW Health organised for the car park of the vacant hardware store at the edge of town to soak up the overflow.

Other retailers within the open-air homewares complex remained open while the clinic was operating, but the former Bunnings shed has been vacant since 2016.

Brisbane-based Sentinel Group Australia, the complex's owner, said it raised concerns about the use of the centre.

In a statement, it said no formal approval was given.

WNSWLHD chief executive Scott McLachlan said the site was used during a public health crisis. 

"I'm absolutely gobsmacked that someone, in the middle of a pandemic, in a crisis like we faced in the Central West in the last couple of weeks, would consider that having a drive-through testing clinic in a car park, outside of the facility, was at all, any risk to the facility which was totally vacant," he said.

The Orange City Council helped organise the clinic.

Council chief executive David Waddell said the lockdown was a "very fast-moving situation and potentially a very serious threat to community health".

The former Bunnings has been vacant since 2016 but is part of a complex with other retail stores. (ABC Central West: Mollie Gorman)

A spokesman for Sentinel said it had "not decided" whether legal action would be pursued over the use of the site.

"In light of Sentinel's obligations to our tenants at the Orange Homemakers Centre, we would have liked to have had the opportunity to work with the Council and Western NSW Local Health District before the property was used as a testing site to ensure appropriate safeguards were put in place for our tenant's businesses and customers," the company's statement said.