Councillors to vote on plan to put controversial Gold Coast art installation into storage

Councillors have today voted in favour of a plan to deal with the controversial $2.1 million lights on the M1 at Yatala. But it’s going to cost ratepayers serious money

GOLD Coast City councillors have voted to remove the unpopular $2.1 million light installation at the M1 in Yatala.

In a closed session of the transport and infrastructure committee this morning, councillors passed a resolution to remove the much ridiculed lights, with council to work with the Department of Transport and Main Roads to reduce the cost.

Councillors also voted to place the lights in public parks for the benefit of the community.

However the lights would go into storage until a suitable location is found, costing ratepayers

$255,000.

Transport committee chair Pauline Young, Deputy Mayor Donna Gates, councillors Cameron Caldwell and Paul Taylor supported the motion.

Councillors Dawn Crichlow, Gary Baildon and Peter Young voted against.

The recommendation of the transport and infrastructure committee councillors will now go to full council next Wednesday and needs to be backed by a majority of councillors.

Councillor Crichlow said it would cost another $1 million to find an alternative location to display the controversial art installation.

“What a joke,” she said.

The controversial lights at the M1 in Yatala. Picture: Mike Batterham

Officers said it would be a challenge to find a new location large enough to accommodate the lights and to have electricity supplied to it.

The installation is 100m in length and has 97 poles.

The $2.1 million lights have been widely panned since their installation because of their placement in the middle of the motorway, which means motorists cannot read the words ‘Gold Coast’ when it’s lit up.

“You can’t even read the signs if you’re driving on the highway,” Tamara Williams from Slacks Creek said. “To me it just looked like a whole bunch of lit up poles sitting in a slab of cement in the median strip.

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“I actually had to look up what they were on the internet to find out what they were there for.”

She said the only way you can read the sign is by standing stationary and directly in front of it.

Other residents have complained about the artwork on social media, saying you can’t read the sign even if you are stood in front of it.

“The fact it looks like it is doubling up on letters from that perspective shows the artist went through the thought process of making the sign double sided,” said one commenter on Reddit. “Yet he/she nor anyone else in the approval process seemed to comprehend the fact that the northbound lanes are going to get backwards text.”

How the lights were supposed to look.

Gold Coast council conducted a worldwide search to find the right design for the $2.1 million installation ahead of the Commonwealth Games last year.

It was originally hoped to create a city icon on par with the Hollywood and Welcome to Las Vegas signs.

The winning design was created by New York-based LOT-EK artists Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano who have named the project HI-LIGHTS.

Mr Lignano said the idea was a “rethinking” of the light poles, cantilever arms, and fixtures found along the highway.

“On the highway to the Gold Coast, you might see the same light fixture hundreds of times, until seeing a hundred such fixtures, uniquely arranged, means you’ll never see them in the same way again,” he said when the council unveiled the plans.

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