Council rejects ’Burra billboard

SOUTH Gippsland Shire Council was urged to review a decision to reject an application for a billboard at the site of the former saleyards in Korumburra, last Wednesday.
James Course, director of Regional Billboard Co, requested council review the refusal for a double sided major promotion billboard.
The owner of the former saleyards, Ash Peters, accompanied Mr Course in support of the sign.
“We felt we’ve been dealt the hard card throughout the process and we want to see if that decision can be reviewed by the council,” Mr Course said.
“We felt it was prejudiced towards the applications from the start. We’ve had five different reasons for refusal.
“The approval of this town planning application has the potential to have a sizable positive effect on the local economy in Korumburra, and to a lesser extent Leongatha.”
The family run business consisting of Mr Course and brother Luke Course is based in Eltham.
Mr Course said they recognised an opening in the market; in Victoria all regional billboards are sold to national advertisers which the brothers didn’t agree with.
“We are developing small format billboards with accessible price points targeted at local businesses,” Mr Course said.
After being refused a planning application, he lodged an appeal with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) for the site in Korumburra.
“We didn’t have any VCAT complaints lodged last year because it’s not the path we wanted to take, but this year we have two lodged,” Mr Course said.
“If there is anything we can do to make everyone more open to it, we are open to any discussions surrounding that.”
Annually, there is estimated to be two and a half million cars that pass the area of the proposed billboard. Of that traffic, 30 percent are visitors. If the billboard captured an audience of one percent of visitors, Mr Course calculated the predicted economic growth for Korumburra would be $484,209 per annum.
“There is actually a clause in our lease with Ash Peters that says we have to prioritise local business and that was a condition for us having it on his property,” Mr Course said.
However, when asked by councillors, Mr Course said national advertising was not ruled out completely.
Some of the reasons for refusal by council included: an increase of visual clutter across the landscape, the proposed signage does not relate to the land it is sited on, and the proposed signage could lead to a proliferation of signage and visual clutter at the Korumburra township entry.
The brothers will be further pursing the matter with VCAT.

Short URL: /?p=27631

Posted by Tayla Kershaw on Feb 26 2019. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry