By Mikayla van Loon
As construction of Lilydale’s new train station gets underway, final designs have been released, leaving some community members baffled by the choice of paint colours.
The proposed design of the community space, which will utilise the area under the rail bridge, incorporates bright orange and yellow as the feature palette.
Stakeholder Liaison Group committee members Lachlan Millsteed and Maria McCarthy told Star Mail that this colour choice does not suit Lilydale.
“To me, it doesn’t represent Lilydale. The hue of colour that they’ve chosen, I feel is too strong and of all the colour palettes that we could choose from the orange and the yellow, just doesn’t look right,” Ms McCarthy said.
Instead Mr Millsteed and Ms McCarthy would have liked to see the colours of the Yarra Ranges, being muted blues and greens, be used in the final design, to really tie in with the rest of the shire’s signage.
“They haven’t picked any of those colours up to reflect what the area looks like,” Ms McCarthy said.
“If you go to Ringwood, they’ve got some really nice blues and some greens and some softer muted colours but ours is extremely bright and to me it looks like it’s still going to be a construction zone because everywhere down there is all orange, so that orange is going to be there permanently.”
Mr Millsteed said often the Level Crossing Removal Authority (LXRA) would give blasé responses as to why these colours were chosen.
The LXRA said concept designs of the new Lilydale Station were shared with the community through information sessions, pop-ups, meetings and online surveys over the past two years.
“Community consultation overwhelmingly supported the inclusion of an informal gathering space at the new Lilydale Station, with more than 500 pieces of feedback received,” LXRA program director Steve Brown said.
Ms McCarthy said if the community had been consulted in this design process, she would have no problem with the choice of colour but she doesn’t believe this was the case.
“We’re part of the Stakeholder Liaison Group, and we haven’t had any input into the colour, it was just presented ‘this is a colour’,” she said.
“We did object in the strongest terms for quite a few months, and they did, revisit it, they did do the right thing and revisited the issue of the colour but came back that this was the colour of choice.”
The Stakeholder Liaison Group was formed at the beginning of the project to communicate with LXRA throughout the level crossing removal project and be the link between the community and the project.
LXRA said it has worked closely with its Urban Design Advisory Panel and other key stakeholders including the local council, in the selection of the open space colours.
According to LXRA, the colours were chosen because of the feedback received about creating a bright and modern space, which used the stone and red-rusty tones in a contemporary way.
“The open space colours reflect tones of the Coldstream stone used in the station cladding and the red-rusty look of the bridge architectural screening, with three different versions of this colour scheme presented to our Stakeholder Liaison Group, which includes members of the community. The final vibrant colour scheme reflects feedback from this group,” Mr Brown said.
Apart from this, Ms McCarthy and Mr Millsteed said the level crossing and new station is looking brilliant and the LXRA have been well ahead of schedule in completing the project which is to their credit.
To share your thoughts on the colour scheme, head to the Lilydale Level Crossing Updates Facebook page.
