Special report: Finkle Street lights axe under the spotlight

Last Wednesday, Selby Online reported that Selby Town Council will no longer be providing Christmas lights or trees for shoppers visiting Finkle Street and Micklegate during this year’s festive season.

But, following our exclusive report, local officials have failed to agree over who is to blame for the axe being brought down on Selby’s festive display.

At the time of our original article, a Town Hall spokesperson released an official statement that categorically laid the blame for the scaling back of the festive display on Scroodge-like budget restrictions. It could not be clearer, ‘This year due to funding cuts there will be no Christmas Lights or Christmas Tree installed on Micklegate’, the statement read.

Just 24 hours later and it seemed the Council was less confident in its position and was now blaming a combination of drunken vandals and dodgy electrics for the controversial decision.

Going on the record in last Thurday’s Selby Times, prominent town councillor Gavin Harding MBE (Lab, Selby North) contradicted the Council’s earlier statement. He told the paper, “It's not down to cutbacks, it's [because] we seem to have a problem down Finkle St with power cuts with the lights and also [the Christmas] tree keeps getting vandalised on Micklegate by some people when they are on night out.”

Keen to get to the bottom of the issue, Selby Online contacted Cllr Harding to enquire as to what he knew about any power issues that would have prevented the lights being installed as usual. Sadly however, Cllr Harding is yet give any form of response to our request for information and so we began making enquiries of our own.

Given that the Micklegate tree has been surrounded by a tall fence for years and that the Finkle Street lights are generally installed around 15 feet above the ground, we didn't really see how the vandalism argument could have held much water. Instead, we decided to get to the nub of the town centre power problems.

Our first port of call was Northern Power Grid who are responsible for the distribition of electricity and ensuring our lights stay on. Not our fault was the response, with a spokeswoman telling us, “We are not aware of any power problems in Micklegate and Finkle Street which would stop the Christmas Lights going ahead.”

After some head scratching, we went back to the Town Council, who now told us that the power problems were an ongoing issue caused by failing electrics within powered bollards on Micklegate. The bollards are owned and serviced by the Selby District Council to whom the Town had time-again reported problems for repair.

But SDC told is that they didn't believe there were any problems that would prevent the lights from being installed. A spokesperson for SDC told us, “We have been in discussion with the Town Council and confirmed that if there is any issue then we’ll be able to put in place a temporary fix so the lights could be connected should they wish.”

So, good news it seems. Any fears the Town Hall had about whether the lights would be able to stay on or not appear to be unfounded and are hereby laid to rest.

So would the Town Council now be willing to reconsider its position? Well we dont know... at the time of publication Selby Town Council has not responded to our questions.