Village could be lit up like ‘Blackpool Illuminations’

The street lights in High Street, Boston Spa are over 40 years old and were due to be replaced in 2009.

Talks with the parish council began in 2006 but councillors do not want to see the number of lights increase from 39 to 99.

City council officials say the existing lights do not meet British Standards and must be replaced.

They say the existing lights leave significant lengths of High Street with little or no illumination and they are not evenly spaced.

Locals say that the proposed new scheme incorporates too many lights and will adversely affect the visual appearance of the street,

The Parish Council has told the city council that “our primary concern is to ensure that any lighting scheme contains the fewest possible number of the lowest and slimmest possible lighting columns and fittings in such locations as best respects the 90 odd listed buildings along High Street.

“In addition, those lights should be staggered as far as ever possible to mitigate the impact of the straight line approach preferred by the lighting engineers which has so little regard for the environment into which the lighting is being introduced.”

Members of the city council’s executive board, which meets on Friday, are now being urged to give the lights the go-ahead - despite the objections.

A report says: “The board is requested to approve the installation of the latest scheme for High Street, Boston Spa which is in accordance with British Standards for the design of road lighting but contrary to local community representatives wishes.”

Wetherby ward councillor John Proctor predicted that the new lights would be “more like Blackpool Illuminations” because of their increased number and brightness.

“The city council is talking about dimming or switching some lights off, so it seems like common sense not to have them in the first place.

“I am hoping that the executive board will see reason and adopt what local people want.”

“Local people do not want this level of lighting in what is a rural village.”

He suggested that officers wanted to “plough ahead” and were “headstrong”.