Bendigo council advertising stance in tatters after VCAT loss

It is the third time in 12 months the council has failed to stop agencies setting up digital billboards on prominent intersections around town.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has also ordered the council to pay its opponent's $1412.80 within 30 days.

That "pleasant surprise" has prompted the opponent, Regional Billboard Co, to offer the first businesses to take up free advertising in Kangaroo Flat "courtesy of Bendigo council".

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VCAT has allowed the agency to install the digital billboard atop a building overlooking the intersection of High Street and Lockwood Road.

The 16.6 square metre billboard would cycle through advertisements every 30 seconds.

Those sorts of signs are not common in Bendigo but are increasingly prominent in other cities.

The council voted in 2021 and said it opposed the billboard's installation after an internal panel of experts unanimously agreed it would not be appropriate.

The panel was formed in the aftermath of VCAT's rebuke of the council for blocking a digital billboard at the intersection of Mitchell Street and Wills Street, in Bendigo's city centre.

In that case, the planning umpire took issue with city officers' interpretation of their own planning scheme.

The council lost another case earlier this year when Regional Billboard Co won the right to build a digital sign at the corner of Mitchell Street and Queen Street.

VCAT has thrown out the council's arguments that a Kangaroo Flat billboard would become the dominant feature at the intersection, have an unreasonable impact on visual amenity and fail to meet a number of planning rules.

It sided with advertisers who said the sign would fit into its surrounds on a busy commercial street corner.

The advertisers had also alleged the council was relying too heavily on prohibitive policies and that it had singled their billboard out.

They pointed out the same streetscape already had many larger and taller signs.

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The council had hoped that its arguments would be bolstered by VCAT tending to consider signage matters on a case-by-case basis.

But VCAT has again taken issue with "sweeping prejudice" it says is unhelpful for such cases.

The council respectfully disputes any characterisations that it has a blanket ban on advertising billboards, its statutory planning manager Ross Douglas said.

"It's not like we have not approved these sorts of things in other locations," he said.

"For us it's about whether it's an appropriate location for different types of signs, in those scenarios. If we think the context is wrong we will be recommending refusal."

Nevertheless, VCAT appears to have established a precedent on digital billboards on busy commercial intersections around Bendigo.

"We will have to go back and look at our policy and see if there is any way to realign it with what VCAT has decided," Mr Douglas said.

The council could find itself with the unenviable task of rewriting rules embedded in its planning scheme.

Changing a planning scheme policy is likely to be a big, time consuming task. Planning schemes can only be changed after public consultations and a sign-off from the state government.

That sort of process could take years.

Mr Douglas is not sure the floodgates have now opened and that advertising agencies will rush large numbers of digital billboards through the council's planning department.

"You might find more and more of these signage companies will be enthused by these VCAT decisions but I can't see us being inundated with them," he said.

"They might have to find a site, for example, which they can use to make an application."

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