Complaints hit Seabank Road lights display

Dec 10 2008 by Carrie Catterall, Wallasey News

Complaints stop lights

ONLY half of Seabank Road’s seasonal lights have been switched on this Christmas after complaints caused many of them to be taken down.

Until this year, hundreds of lights, ranging from small twinkling bulbs to bigger snowmen, were switched off and left up in New Brighton from January to December.

But this summer complaining residents had them dismantled. Now organisers say many of the lights are damaged and there is not enough manpower to re-erect them all or fix the broken ones.

New Brighton councillor Tony Pritchard has led this Christmas community project for nearly eight years.

He said: “People take time off work and put these lights up voluntarily each year.

“We work with the traders and each shop has to be individually re-wired to accommodate the lights.

“It takes a lot of time and effort to do this – if you looked at the scale of the project you’d understand why some of the lights have to stay up.

“We do take many of the lights down at the beginning of the year but, because of time and the potential damage to the lights, we leave some of the more difficult to remove ones up – especially those erected over the shop canopies.

“This year, however, we had to take them down and have not had time to put all of them back up or fix the broken ones.”

Robert Woods, secretary of New Brighton Traders’ Association, helps put the lights up each year and said he is “saddened” by the situation.

Cllr Pritchard added: “Most people love the lights and they drive from miles away to come and look at them - it’s a shame our display isn’t as grand this year.”

Katherine Devereux, 25, of New Brighton, however, thinks the lights look “shabby.”

She said: “If people had a choice of having them up all year round or not at all, I think most people would chose not to have them up at all.”