Ever wanted to design a town's welcome sign?
Ararat Rural City Council is asking the community to help shape a new look for the town's eastern entrance, creating an arrival experience that reflects Ararat's unique story and encourages travellers to stop, stay, and explore.
The existing eastern entry signage and sculpture have become tired and damaged over time, and Council sees a strong opportunity to better showcase the municipality to the thousands of vehicles that travel the Western Highway each day. More than 5,500 vehicles, including around 1,500 trucks, travel west of Ballarat daily, with volumes expected to keep growing in coming years.
Council is seeking community input on how the renewed entrance could look, drawing inspiration from some of regional Australia's most effective gateways that use scale, strong visual design, durable materials, and native landscaping to create a powerful sense of arrival. Across the country, leading town entry projects are telling local stories through elements such as steel and stone structures, low-maintenance indigenous plantings, and public art that encourages people to pull over, take photos, and discover more about the places they are visiting.
For Ararat, the eastern entry is a chance to recognise the area's layered identity, including Djab Wurrung country (Tallarambooroo), its history as the only Australian city founded by Chinese people, its gold rush past, its proximity to renowned wine regions, and its role as the eastern gateway to Gariwerd/the Grampians. Council wants the renewed entrance to reflect this richness in a way that feels authentic to local people and compelling to visitors.
Over a 30 day consultation period, community members are invited to visit Engage Ararat and submit their ideas for the eastern entrance. Council is keen to receive designs, artworks, concepts for artists to engage, potential suppliers, examples of entrance projects from other places that residents admire, and general thoughts on how Ararat should welcome people arriving from Melbourne and Ballarat along the Western Highway.
Mayor Cr Bob Sanders said the project is an important opportunity for the community to help set the tone for how Ararat presents itself to the world. "Every day, thousands of people drive past Ararat without really getting a sense of who we are," Cr Sanders said. "We want our eastern entrance to spark curiosity, tell our story, and encourage people to stop, grab a coffee, explore our main street, and spend some time in our community."
"This is about drawing on the pride and creativity that already exists in Ararat," he said. "If you are an artist, a designer, a maker, a local business owner, or you just have an idea you think would look great at our town entry, we want to hear from you."
"Once we have gathered the community's ideas, Council will bring them together into a strategy that welcomes people arriving along the Western Highway and helps usher in a new era for Ararat Rural City," Cr Sanders said.
Concepts for the eastern entrance are expected to consider scale, visibility at highway speed, durability, and the use of native and indigenous plants that are suited to local conditions and require minimal maintenance.
Council will also be looking at opportunities to incorporate First Nations artwork and dual naming in respectful ways, and to create art and structures that become photo opportunities in their own right.
