No room at Inn for festive lights
Christmas row between town and council
Council chiefs have blocked community leaders from using their town hall to store Christmas lights.
Furious Community Councillors in Troon have branded the decision as ‘nonsense,’ rubbishing claims that there is not enough space to store their haul of selffunded decorations.
Stunned community leaders have hit back claiming the building has plenty of room for the lights after planning the big Christmas switch-on from the council building.
Volunteers could now be left dumped with the expensive yearly equipment when they are taken down this month.
Community Councillor Dougie Graham told the Post: “The community council are in the town hall all the time, we already store some stuff in there.
“For the council to say there is no room, they must have filled it up in the last week, they are talking a load of nonsense.
“There is space in the men’s locker room for them. It will cost South Ayrshire Council nothing to store them. They are happy to store donations in there, but they can’t store our lights.”
Community council leader Frances Carson has called on council chiefs to allow common sense to prevail.
She said: “The lights belong to us, we got funding to get them, the lights belong to the people.
“The town hall is a building that belongs to the people. Common sense dictates that.”
We previously told how a special taskforce was set up within Troon Community Council to improve the festive spectacle for the town after years of underwhelming displays.
Lights man Ian Knight headed up the group and achieved a £10,000 kitty from lottery funding, as well as local fundraisers helping them illuminate Troon.
And he has revealed that when the shipment of lights arrived he was forced to store them in his garage until the big switch-on.
Ian added: “We never had anywhere to store them before and we now don’t have anywhere to store them after.
“After putting a lot of effort to secure funding and all the hard work we just want to make sure they are safe.”
A Council spokesperson said: “Unfortunately we do not have the capacity to store Christmas lights for community groups as storage space is limited.
“A condition of our Christmas Light Fund was that community groups would provide their own storage for any lights and equipment that they purchased.”
After all the effort to secure funding we just want to make sure they are safe