Residents Furious Over ‘Obscene’ Digital Billboards & Bus Shelters Across Eastern Suburbs

Tensions are coming to a head between Woollahra council and Eastern suburbs residents over the installation of “huge, ugly” bus shelters with digital billboards that have been placed throughout the community.

Last March, oOh! Media partnered with the Woollahra Council to install around 40 bus shelter advertisements across the eastern suburbs, including areas like Bellevue Hill, Double Bay, Rose Bay, and Woollahra.

The first of the shelters was installed last June outside Star Nails on New South Head Road in Rose Bay. The initial anger has not calmed down and instead, the issue has just gotten more heated. 

Resident says ‘all locals’ want the bus shelters removed

The saga came to a head when Rose Bay resident, Deanna Mastellone, chained herself to the front of her property in an overnight protest earlier this year.

Mastellone, who has been one of the most vocal opponents to the shelters, claimed that one was set to be built in her front garden. Mastellone, along with five of her neighbours, camped outside her house with a chain and padlock on the night that work was set to begin. 

“Over my dead body this was going to happen,” she told The Daily Telegraph. 

Along with chaining her to her property, Mastellone also spray-painted the street outside her home and plastered her town with posters protesting the shelters.

In a post to a community Facebook page, Mastellone threatened to “chain myself again to stop any placement destroying our residential streetscape.”

“All objections and petition are ignored by Council hence I have put in a complaint to the ombudsman and provided all my emails on this injustice,” Mastellone said on her Facebook page. “3 car accidents have occurred because of the giant advertising screen outside the nail studio in Rose Bay, which all locals want permanently and completely removed.”

Billboards called ‘disrespectful’ & against ‘historic aesthetic’ of Eastern suburbs

However, another resident of Rose Bay, Nancy Georges, claims that the Woollahra Council “couldn’t give a flying rat’s arse” about residents’ concerns.

Georges has been a local of Rose Bay for about 10 years and launched a change.org petition last February to oppose the narrowing of footpaths along New South Head Road, which was a result of the bus stops’ expanding to accommodate the billboards.

“They’re just so money-driven,” she told NewsCorp, “We had beautiful old bus stops, …then suddenly they’ve got these monstrosities turn up, flashing lights in people’s eyes, and they’re just huge.”

According to Georges, the bus shelter advertisements are a threat to community safety and access to local businesses. 

“I’ve actually seen women with prams walking on the road because they can’t get around (the bus stops)”, Ms Georges said. “It’s just – it’s obscene. It’s obscene. It’s disrespectful. And there’s no duty of care … It drives me insane.”

Ming Truong, owner of Star Nails, agreed with Georges that the shelter was “a danger to the public.”

Truong told The Telegraph that in the six months since the shelter’s arrival, three car accidents had occurred because motorists turning right from Caledonian Road can’t see anything as a result of how large the shelters are.

The issue of the shelters is also one of aesthetics, with locals believing that they interfere with the “sophisticated, historic style of the area.”

“Our streets aren’t billboards. It’s not Times Square,” Ms Georges said. 

Other locals have echoed those opinions in statements sent to the council. As reported by The Telegraph, letters sent to the council reflect locals’ fears that the area’s “village-like atmosphere” would be “mutilated” by the “monstrous” and “unnecessary eyesores”.

Woollahra Council says bus shelters were ‘placed appropriately’ and residents notified

As of now, 22 of the 39 shelters have been installed across Woollahra – it’s understood that none of them have been placed on private property.

“Each site was assessed to ensure shelters are placed appropriately, and notifications issued to nearby residents and businesses, providing opportunity for feedback prior to the commencement of the installation work,” a spokesperson for Woollahra Council told NewsCorp. 

The matter is now being investigated by the NSW Ombudsman.