Every day Roleystone resident Sam Spinks and his two-year-old daughter Eilean are forced to look at a large, ugly object in their street.
It’s not a property piled high with rubbish or a bus stop covered in graffiti.
Instead it is a water tank set on an open clearing in the middle of Roleystone.
Mr Spinks taught his daughter the words ‘water tank’ and ever since then she shouts the words with enthusiasm when strolling past the tank.
“I found myself being forced to look at this water tank every day and it’s a bit of an eyesore in its current state,” he said.
“I thought if I’m going to have to look at this thing it would be good if it looked nice at least.”
Mr Spinks started a poll on a Roleystone-based Facebook page to see if others felt the same.
Within hours Mr Spinks was surprised to see well over one hundred responses with an overwhelming 94 per cent of people in favour of seeing mural artwork painted on the water tank.
“Civil infrastructure doesn’t have to be boring and I think there is a huge movement now to transform otherwise dull looking installations into exciting community assets,” he said.
“The overwhelming feedback was for an artistic representation of some of our flora and fauna.”
Water Corporation spokesperson Clare Lugar said the organisation has a program which completes projects like this but on much smaller scale assets.
“The Splash of Colour program focuses on smaller structures such as cabinets and small pump stations as they are often highly visible and are relatively inexpensive to paint,” she said.
“The costs of painting a tank this size are much higher than the smaller projects we undertake through Splash of Colour.
“Quotes for the cost for painting similar sized tanks in other areas of Perth have been in the vicinity of $300,000.”
Ms Lugar said the Water Corporation would be happy to hear from the local community if they have any proposals but a project of this size would not be able to be solely funded by the organisation.
