Efforts to remove the controversial Yatala lights installation along the M1 motorway on the Gold Coast have been renewed just days after the lights were switched off to disrupt what police have called hoon driving.
City of Gold Coast councillor Mark Hammel, whose division takes in the area, today moved a motion seeking the council "commence the removal of the Yatala lights installation" at a cost of $250,000.
He received unanimous support from councillors on the Transport and Infrastructure Committee.
"I've been of the fairly strong opinion since I was elected that the Yatala lights were a bit of a slap in the face," Cr Hammel said.
"They cost $2 million to install in the first place, they're in the wrong location, they can't be read.
"My residents and other Gold Coast [residents] felt that that money could've been spent on fixing roads, footpaths and building playgrounds."
The lights were temporarily switched off over the weekend at the request of the Queensland Police Service, which said it had become a popular meeting site for hundreds of hoon drivers.
Superintendent Geoff Sheldon said hoons had been "drawn like a moth" to the lights.
Bringing saga 'to an end'
Cr Hammel proposed that the lights be removed in line with the council's public art policy.
"To have an already problematic piece of artwork now having hooning in front of it was just enough for me," Cr Hammel said.
"There's all different laws and artistic rights around these art pieces that need to be dealt with appropriately.
"It may include the artist taking the art installation back. It may include for the installation to be sold somewhere else.
"It may include the art installation just being scrapped and this whole saga will come to an end."
In 2019 the committee recommended placing the lights into storage at a cost of $250,000 while investigating whether they could be relocated elsewhere.
But that motion was voted down at a full council meeting over concerns about the cost to ratepayers.
The latest attempt to remove the lights would face a full council vote on March 28.
Silver fern struggles
The Yatala lights are not the only public artwork causing problems for the council.
The committee today also voted to sell or dispose of several public art sculptures that have been in storage for five years.
Initially commissioned about 10 years ago as artwork for a light rail route, 11-metre high silver fern sculptures were unable to be installed at the original location in Surfers Paradise due to constraints with the site.
A report to the committee recommended installing the silver fern sculptures at the city's Botanic Gardens at a cost of $1.7 million over 30 years.
But the committee's councillors instead voted to sell or dispose of the artwork in consultation with the artist, with concerns over the cost of installing and maintaining the sculptures.
"We have made so many good faith attempts to find a home for this artwork and on every occasion we have failed," councillor Hermann Vorster said.
"At some point I think we need to reflect on whether or not this artwork can and should have a home on the Gold Coast."
