PLANS to hold an exciting new community event in Wellington Park next year has been met with support from councillors alongside big concerns about a £17,000 price tag.

A Night Walk Garden of Light event has been proposed for Wellington Park which could see the area turned into a magical and peaceful place with lighting and sound with the help of artists and local schools.

Sally Mann, of Fuse Performance Ltd, which has held similar events around the region, spoke with members of Wellington Town Council’s economic development committee on October 16.

“I really love Wellington Park and it would be a wonderful place to animate with light and music,” she said.

Councillors were, however, concerned when it was suggested that costs for the event could amount to nearly £17,000 – although around half of that could be retrieved by selling tickets for people to attend.

Cllr John Thorne said: “I’m in favour of this, but I do have some reservations about the budget. Spending £17,000 on one night is heck of a lot of money.

“But I like it. It will be something different and something to enthral the community.”

Cllr Mark Lithgow said: “I’m in favour of this in principle and I love all that sort of stuff.

“It would be a very nice event to have, but we have to be careful when spending taxpayers’ money. Spending £17,000 on a ‘nice event to have’ isn’t making me feel comfortable when there are so many other things we could spend the money on.

“I’m nervous about this which is a shame as I would love to see this happen.”

The Mayor, Cllr Janet Lloyd, was much more forthright in her opposition to the possible event.

“I’m dead against this,” she said. “This idea for an event has been plucked out of the air. It’s costly and we’re talking about charging people to attend an event in Wellington Park which is not right in my mind.

“I don’t see the benefit of this and we have got to watch the budget.”

And Cllr Keith Wheatley said he thought the idea of selling about £8,000 in ticket sales was “over optimistic” and that he would have trouble supporting the event.

But Cllr Mike McGuffie said: “I don’t see why we wouldn’t want to see this event happen? I would like to see us explore this further.”

Cllr Steve Mercer said: “I’m very supportive of this sort of idea. If we have the courage to do things like this it could work – if you try to fly a kite it sometimes works.

“Details obviously have to be sorted out, but this is a really good idea and I think Wellington Park would be a tickety-boo place to do it.”

Committee chairman, Cllr Chris Booth, said he felt that the events working group needed to look at the details of the event again with a budget, date and theme key priorities.

“We need to look at this again and get a bit more structure and finesse,” he said.