Signs of the times
May 10, 2001

Essential street clutter piles higher. Brunswick and Smith Street traders and residents are about to face a menace that may become a common sight. Powerpoles have always been ugly beasts but have become so familiar that that they can hardly see them. But they will soon pop back into view as 1.2 metre high advertising boards are clamped to 80 or so of them in these streets.

At this point, the National Trust is showing concern, because Brunswick Street has become a heritage area. Perhaps the recent registering of this area was an attempt to fight off this type of over-commercialisation. However the Trust has dropped the ball by saying that the responsibility finally rests with the local council, the City of Yarra.

So who benefits from these signs apart from the owner of the signs, the leasors of them, and the owner of the newly privatised powerpoles? No one. Might the public get to know and love these clamped ads like many love old neon signs? Not likely, these signs change by the month, there will be nothing to get to know or remember.

This is another entrepreneurial opportunity seized in the chilly new world of privatised utilities, and public space falls victim. Space that may once have been deemed civic, or shared, has become the void between leasable surfaces.

by Peter Johns