THE fairy lights made Weymouth look like a ‘worn-out, 1950s Disneyland’, a council meeting heard during a heated debate on the future of seafront lighting.

The Weymouth and Portland Borough Council management committee was asked to approve the release of £50,000 from its reserves to unlock a £200,000 grant to cover the cost of a new lighting scheme to replace the ‘unpopular’ lasers.

The £50,000 would pay for consultation on options and specialist reports to assess the impact on Weymouth’s Georgian seafront, a designated Conservation Area.

But while the committee backed the scheme in principle, welcoming the opportunity for new lighting - likely to be a more modern version of the fairy lights according to a report - they raised concerns over the bid to spend thousands of pounds without knowing what the final cost could be.

Cllr Jason Osborne, the borough council spokesman for tourism and leisure, said: “This is an opportunity to bring back not necessarily the fairy lights, but a fairy light system that’s different from the lasers, which seem to be quite unpopular.”

He added that the new scheme will reduce anti-social behaviour on the seafront by increasing footfall after dark in the area.

“Hopefully we can come up with a system that’s going to be loved by all.”

But several members of the committee disliked the idea of a return to fairy lights.

Cllr Gill Taylor said: “I’ve always been fairly outspoken about the fairy lights. I thought they were appalling. I don’t want to drag this town back to the 1950s. They made Weymouth look like a worn out Disneyland.”

And Cllr Kevin Brookes added: “What they were is old, fragile bulbs, dipped in paint on a dodgy bit of string.

“If we still have in our minds strings of bulbs dipped in paint and that’s the limit of our imagination and ambition then quite frankly we need to rethink.”

Suggestions were made that local artists be involved in designing a lighting scheme, with Cllr James Farquharson suggesting that, rather than spend £50,000 on consultants, the borough council should put the contract for creating the scheme out to tender to local companies, and use the cash to have it put in place.

Leader of the council Jeff Cant agreed.

He said: “We need to be careful with consultants. There may be firms who can do this, and it would save us £50,000. I don’t want us to spend £50,000, get a £200,000 grant then find out it would cost £700,000 to do this.”

Cllr Cant proposed that the issue be further discussed at an informal working group, so more research on costs can be done. The proposal was unanimously agreed by the committee – although Cllr Osborne warned against ‘kicking the issue into the long grass’.

Cllr Ray Nowak stressed the importance of the committee making it clear that the council is happy to contribute to a scheme in order to unlock the grant funding.

“This should not be seen in any way as hesitance or reluctance, but we need to look at this in a pragmatic way.”