It is difficult to understand why the council decided that what was really needed on top of the former Bradford Central Library was a set of colour-changing lights.
The building, now renamed the Margaret McMillan Tower and housing Bradford Council’s children’s services team, now has the decorative LED lights installed in a recess just below the roof of the building.
But the justification given for the £13,000 spent to put them up is a little stretched, to say the least.
The idea of lights nine-storeys up helping security on the streets below is difficult to grasp, particularly at a time when street-light operating times in some parts of the district are going to be reduced to save money.
And will it really act as a navigational guide to help anyone to find their way around the city centre’s one-way system?
It may help to enhance festival celebrations but it is some way from City Park where many of these events take place – and, regardless of that, these festivals are another area the council has had to cut.
It may be only £13,000 – not a great deal of money in the grand scheme of things, according to Council deputy leader Val Slater – but that is a significant sum to those who have lost their jobs or seen vital services lost in the ongoing cuts.
It may be that the money was ring-fenced for capital expenditure but surely there must have been other, more worthy, building projects that the money could have gone towards that would not seem so ostentatious and flashy at a time when everyone is being hit so hard by austerity?
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