The smell of rotting garbage and flood mud is dissipating as the clean up of the streets of Lismore CBD gets underway.

While local business owners are busy cleaning out their shops, local business owner Tracey Randall is calling them to tell the Prime Minister what they need to keep their businesses from dying.

Today, four contracting companies are hard at work with machinery and brooms, moving nearly 100,000 tonnes of rubbish.

The Lismore App spoke to one of the contractors who said the amount of flood generated waste across the whole of Lismore would make a pile three metres high and a kilometre long - if it was heaped up together.

The Lismore App watched as Carrington Street behind Lismore Centro was cleared today by bobcats with teeth and dozers pushing mattresses, sweeping the remaining wet slime from the roads. See the video here: https://fb.watch/bBpKAurogS/

Workers armed with brooms swept the debris toward the bobcat and said their skip bin rubbish removal company had already removed 48 skip bins full from the Wyrallah Road Spar alone.

The clean up in the CBD will continue over the next few days before moving into the residential areas of Lismore. But, there is still much more to be done.

“Stay in Lismore” - local business owners called to tell the PM what they want

Walking around the CBD was Lismore business owner Tracey Randall from Randall Legal.

She said she spoke to the NSW Premier this morning and is now calling for local business owners to tell our leaders what they need to get off the ground again. 

“You can put your comments and suggestions about what your need on a board outside my Randall Legal office near the Richmond Hotel,” Tracey said.

“Then we can have a public face about what local businesses need.

“Most of the business owners have been in their shops cleaning up and don’t have time to talk to the government.

Her message to local businesses is “stay in Lismore”.

“I spoke to the Premier this morning to convey what businesses need to get back up and running,” he said.

“One of the things that’s not on the table right now is a jobkeeper type program so that businesses can retain their staff and the money keeps circulating.”

She said the Premier was “very open to the idea”.

“It’s a federal issue and needs to be addressed by the Prime Minister,” she said.

Lismore’s federal representative MP Kevin Hogan told the Lismore App that we should expect a visit from the Prime Minister by the end of the week.

“He (the PM) gets out of Covid isolation on Wednesday and so will be here before the weekend,” Mr Hogan said.

Lismore MP Janelle Saffin said she also spoke to the Premier when he was recently in Lismore.

Ms Saffin said he was receptive to the idea of a jobkeeper program for Lismore.

“He told me he was shocked by the scale of what he saw,” Ms Saffin said.

“Local business people told him that they are small businesses and can apply for a grant for the business – but what about their staff - they need income too.”