AFTER reading Councillor Howard Legg’s letter (Your Say, October 5) I would like to respond, now he has told us a lot more of what’s going on.

Our job as a seaside resort is to bring a little magic to the holidaymakers. This is our job, this is what we do.

When people come to Weymouth and see the fairy lights, this is what they get. A little bit of magic!

I’m an artist and sometimes I do a painting and don’t know why they work – maybe it’s the curve of the bay, or the Georgian buildings. It’s elusive but the fact remains that you look at the front – and it takes your breath away.

This is the amazing view the world would have seen when the Olympics came. It would have stayed in their subconscious it’s that special.

Instead, the TV cameras will pan out to sea, to show up the laser beams. Getting rid of the lights is to take away some of the magic of Weymouth. When you have something unique, why change it?

Apparently, the new lighting system is going to significantly enhance the seafront because it is going to be much brighter than before.

The fairy lights made everything look magical. Now with this very bright-lit Esplanade every bit of rust on railings and cracks in the Esplanade are going to show up like a sore thumb.

Then we come to the Victorian light columns – apparently they don’t throw out enough light to cover today’s road specifications.

So I was hoping this could be replaced by new old-fashioned ones in keeping with the Georgian front.

But they tell me although that would have been possible it was expensive, so they are replacing them with 10-metre new ones, the same as the ones on Preston Beach Road.

To these they are going to strap lamps to light the Esplanade.

Poundbury, which is not as important as Weymouth, especially with the Olympics coming, has really attractive road lights, in the old-fashioned style, nothing like the Preston Road ones.

Why can they have them but not Weymouth? I cannot emphasise how important style is.

The original brief, I am sure, was to make the Esplanade look aesthetically attractive for the Olympics.

Even if we have been stuck with the Preston Road-type rather than the superior Poundbury ones. At least they were 10 metres high and on the edge of the road.

We could still have mixed old with new by having some smaller ones in a Victorian style, the same as they have in Bowling Alley Walk in Dorchester.

Theatrically, with the fairy lights, they would have blended in with the shelters.

How can we move upmarket if we haven’t got style?

That won’t happen now because room has got to be found for seven coloured tubular stands to accommodate the lasers.

At least we can stand on the very well lit, characterless, modern Esplanade and get that lovely tranquil feeling you get looking out to sea.

Hang on, we can’t, because of the lasers – but we can’t call them lasers.

We know they are lasers, the council know they are lasers, but they are frantically trying to think of another name to call them.

When you drive over the Ridgeway at night and see the lights it lifts your heart. Soon they will be gone forever and the world will never see them.

MIKE TAYLOR, Osmington