Is it love at first light?

Roundabout-loving Blenheim is in the grips of a traffic light revolution, but the town has been down this road before.

Blenheim man Nigel Perry has long campaigned for pedestrian signals – the lesser of the traffic light evils – but those in the free-flowing roundabout camp were never prepared to give way.

Could that be about to change?

If it does, Perry is ready. His plan: why stop at one?

Perry, who volunteers with Marlborough Road Safety, said Blenheim needed traffic lights ‘‘now more than ever’’.

He would like to see lights at the crossing outside the town’s main post office, and at the zebra crossing between the library and Countdown.

Perry first petitioned to have traffic signals installed at the pedestrian crossing outside the post office in 2005.

His idea was rejected though because Blenheim’s system of roundabouts ‘‘worked reasonably well’’.

Perry came up with the idea of having a pedestrian-controlled traffic signal after watching people wander across the road without looking and holding up traffic.

‘‘Traffic lights allow pedestrians to go across in one big push, holding up traffic for just a few moments. It keeps the flow moving.

‘‘That’s much better than a pedestrian crossing, where vehicles must give way. People just cross one after the other and are constantly holding up traffic.’’

But a traffic light on Seymour St, between the library and Countdown, was probably more important than one at the post office, Perry said.

‘‘Blenheim’s CBD has a restricted speed of 30kmh but Seymour St, which is not in the CBD but is still well used, has a restricted speed of 50kmh,’’ he said.

A 12-year-old girl was hit by a car at the crossing on Seymour St in 2014, before the driver drove off.

Perry’s renewed passion for traffic lights was set alight this week after a report to the Marlborough District Council proposed pedestrian signals on Nelson St.

The report said the lights would cut 38 seconds off a drive along Nelson St at peak times, as the existing courtesy crossing brought traffic to a more regular standstill.

The lights would allow traffic to flow freely until a pedestrian pushed the button. The crossing was used regularly by Marlborough Girls’ College and Bohally Intermediate students going to and from school.

‘‘Traffic on Nelson St was especially bad when State Highway 1 closed, because all the trucks and buses going through Blenheim had to take that route,’’ Perry said.

‘‘But even with State Highway 1 open, the traffic there is not going to get better.

‘‘There will be more traffic along the road every month and the schools will still be there in five years, even if they do decide to move, because it will take them ages to do so.’’

The report has been referred on to the next full council meeting, which is on May 10, for adoption.

Perry is a former president of the nowdefunct Marlborough Road Safety Council. An elderly man has been caught with child exploitation images on his laptop after taking it to a repair shop.

The 77-year-old, who cannot be named, took his laptop and external hard drive to a repair shop in Blenheim. A man working on the laptop three days later discovered four disturbing videos, and called police, a police summary said.

Police seized the laptop and hard drive, and a digital forensic analysis found more than 100 videos and photographs of ‘‘dehumanising’’ sexual content.

They also found four videos from a notorious child abuse series, ‘‘one of the worst’’ circulating on the internet and ‘‘highly sought after by child offenders internationally’’, the summary said.

One of those videos was played two days before the man took his laptop to the shop on July 14 last year.

Police also found three photographs of naked pre-teen girls.

The man’s internet search history revealed more than 50 searches, with key words used that showed the man knowingly searched for illegal and objectionable images and video, the summary said.

When spoken to by police, the man admitted downloading the photographs and videos between March, 2016, and July, 2017.

He said he was lonely and suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

He had never actually touched a child, he said.

The man admitted three charges of possessing objectionable publications at the Blenheim District Court on Monday. He man was convicted and remanded on bail to July 10 for sentencing.