Draft Moorabool Shire Gateways Strategy: public exhibition

The draft Gateways Strategy aims to address the current uneven distribution of existing signage through the Shire, an inconsistent approach to signage replacement, and the opportunity to combine landscape and vegetation treatments as a way of creating and celebrating identity across the Shire. It will provide a holistic approach to implementing upgrades to signage and township entrances based on a suite of landscape elements and treatments.

The town gateways will serve as a series of recognisable landmarks that reflect the character of the townships within the Shire. More broadly, Shire boundaries will identify the transition points from neighbouring local government areas.

Four key elements will be used to establish a common approach to the gateways character across the Shire and they are:

• Signage
• Landform
• Siting and features
• Planting

The strategy sets a signage hierarchy and provides for three scales of Shire signage. This includes:

• Type A Shire boundary sign: which will be typically used on highways and faster speed environments.
• Type B Main Gateway sign: which will be typically used at prominent township entries.
• Type C Secondary Gateway sign: which will be typically used at smaller settlements or as secondary entrances to larger towns.

The strategy also provides guidance on the materials, colours, content and scale of the signage elements.

The strategy also clarifies the role of existing signage throughout the Shire. It is intended that the existing large format signage will remain until a significant quantity of the new gateway elements have been installed or the upkeep of these becomes a disproportionate maintenance burden.  Many of the suggested locations for new gateway treatments are in different locations to the existing large signs and as such can co-exist for the time being.

The Moorabool Shire Small Towns Strategy provides the strategic direction for the draft Gateways Strategy.      The draft strategy includes a framework which provides a set of guidelines to follow in the development of gateway treatments within Moorabool Shire.  The framework includes details and guidance on signage and planting details as well as a decision making process for developing individual gateways.  Hopetoun Park was used as an example to demonstrate the steps and process to follow when implementing gateway treatments.

An implementation plan has been prepared as part 3 to the strategy and includes details on how the strategy would be implemented and applied to 22 of Moorabool’s towns and settlements.  The strategy focusses on developing a “toolkit” for the site specific implementation of gateway treatments to Moorabool’s many settlements.  This approach has seen the development of a set of principles that can be applied to any settlement in any location across the Shire.