Big decisions for Carterton’s Big Ben!
The once heralded “Carterton’s Big Ben” has been under repair this year after a seismic assessment in 2015 identified the structure as being earthquake prone.
Once the strengthening work is complete, the tower will need to be repainted, providing a unique opportunity to review the identity of our town’s icon.
The Council’s Place Making Advisory Group has worked hard to come up with three colour options for the Carterton community to vote on. The three design options are the status quo (white and grey), a colour scheme that embraces the 1960s architecture of the tower, and a bold and vibrant rainbow colour scheme. All options cost the same and will be paid for out of the existing budget.
How the voting process will work
The colour scheme which receives the most votes will determine the final design. There is one vote per household in Carterton, with your official voting token in the September edition of the Carterton Crier. Please bring this token to the Events Centre reception and place in one of the three boxes which corresponds to the design you want to vote for. Please fill out your contact details on the token for the purpose of eliminating duplicate votes. Only cut-out tokens from this edition of the Crier will be accepted as a formal vote. Voting is available Mon – Fri 9.30am – 5pm and Sat 10am – 4pm from 14th September until 5th October.
Landscaping and lighting potential
Once the clock tower has been painted, there is future potential for ground lighting, tower lighting and could be repainted every few years, funded through external grants. We may be able to expose the bells on two sides using perspex panels, if the engineering of the structure allows for it. The landscaping image above indicates some of the future design concepts for the area surrounding the clock tower.
All three options have the potential for exposed panels and lighting but would require external funding yet to be sourced.
Below are your three colour options!
What’s the situation with potential clock tower lighting?
We know there have been a lot of great ideas out there about what should happen with our town clock, some of which we would love to carry out. However, at this stage we only have the budget to repaint the clock tower structure.
Any additional promises of exposed panels and lighting are extremely premature – we have not confirmed the engineering of the structure allows for exposed panels and we have not secured any of the required funding for internal lighting.
The council is not comfortable presenting our community with an uncertain option and allowing people to vote for it when we have no way to guarantee we can deliver it. All three design options have the potential for lighting should external funding be available. The information on this page and on our authorised two page spread in the Carterton Crier provide the accurate information regarding your clock tower vote.