Shedding festive light on Christmas

That campaign was run by the Town Centre and Tourism Action Group, part of the then Bexhill Regeneration Partnership. The lights were designs produced by Bexhill schoolchildren.

Now that era has passed. Action group and partnership are yesterday's news.

Meanwhile, cross-street lighting has proven to be vulnerable to Breezy Bexhill's sea winds and the future is said to lie in LED lighting and fittings to street lamps..

The Chamber of Commerce and Tourism has come under scathing attack by Rother cabinet members for saying it cannot shoulder the Christmas lighting burden. Councillors, apparently, are unaware that the chamber - total income 5,000 a year - has been telling Rother for the past three and a half years that it doesn't have the resources.

This is an issue which is as likely to divide town opinion just as it split Rother cabinet down the middle on Monday.

Country councillors argue that Christmas lighting is the responsibility of traders because it is the traders who stand to benefit.

Town members, championed by recently-retired town trader Cllr Brian Kentfield, say loss of the lights would be a body-blow to an already-struggling local economy.

The alternative to the Chamber of Commerce attempting another scheme is for Rother to undertake the work and, since town centre Christmas lights would be a purely Bexhill amenity, to put the bill on the Special Expenses charge paid by Bexhill residents in addition to the district Council Tax.

The figures involved in this complex issue are huge. The 2002 campaign was a hard-fought affair in which small local traders had virtually to name-and-shame the big multiples to contribute a share.

Rother is now talking about a replacement system costing more than three times as much.

To anyone who has observed the empty spaces in our shopping streets or the frequent sales staged by traders in a bid to boost trade it is abundantly obvious that '“ without some seasonal Fairy Godmother as benefactor - a further town campaign could not raise 100,000 '“ or anything like it.

But is it Rother's place '“ i.e. its local taxpayers - to be that Fairy Godmother?

The real crux of this issue is whether townsfolk '“ through the Special Expenses charge - would be prepared to bear the cost of a replacement system.

Cllr Kentfield teased a figure out of the cabinet debate. For a mid-range Band D Council Tax payer new lights would add 1.94 a year to their bill for the next three years.

So there is the issue in a nutshell, dear readers. Would you be prepared to pay a total of 5.82 to see the town centre lit this and subsequent Christmases '“ or should it be "dark"?

Over to you...