Mount Gambier City Council will again update its advertising and signage policy, after discussions with sporting clubs revealed part of the current policy was to their detriment.
After changes were made to the council’s advertising and policy in March, the policy will be updated to remove the condition that stopped signs or sponsorship logos being placed on fences, gates or other structures that faced externally to leased land.
According to Councillor Christian Greco, this condition would have come at a big cost to Mount Gambier’s four football clubs, in terms of sponsorship dollars and sponsorship opportunities, which reached out to the councillor to have the policy amended.
“I apologise to everyone in advance because we’re all sick of talking about signs,” Cr Greco told councillors before beginning his speech on the motion.
“The sporting groups in Mount Gambier probably have had the hardest one or two years they have ever had and every single dollar counts for them.
“I think they felt a bit let down when council said there would no longer be any external facing signs.
“They were a bit frustrated, and I think that whilst this does not say that we are going to tick-off every external facing sign, this will give us an opportunity to work in with them on something that is going to be a best result for everyone.”
Among the changes to the prior motion is allowing the council’s chief executive Sarah Philpott to delegate the approval of signs at sporting clubs.
Proposals for the installation of signage on council-owned or controlled land that have not been granted approval will be referred to council, going forward.
Any signs requiring development approval will still need to go through the approval process, even if the sign is already erected.
Internally facing signs are still accepted, but the changes to the motion will now allow external facing signs to be placed on leased land, with most to require development approval before being erected.
Any existing sign that does not meet development approval requirements, with Cr Greco saying they will need to be either “torn down, fixed or made to meet development approval so they are safe”.
Cr Frank Morello, who moved council’s previous advertising and signage policy resolution in March, said the motion put the onus on making decisions about the approval of signage back on the chamber without councillors having a clear set of criteria to assess them.
He asked Ms Philpott what criteria she would be using to grant conditional approval of signs, to which she replied council would use current approvals to help develop an approval policy.
“What this resolution is really proposing is that we deal with the signs that are existing and any new ones … effectively using these as examples or trials to develop a clearer policy position,” Ms Philpott said.
“It is not about the development approval, that will still take its own course.”
As it stands, council grants “deemed consent” for the installation of signage by community and sporting lessees occupying council land, except for signage requiring development approval.
Council is still to develop a policy for granting landowner consent, with this latest motion ensuring that council will only develop this policy in the future, following resolution of all current unapproved signs located on council land requiring development approval.
