Disco lights on a crane derrick
The new lamp standards on Patrick Street in Cork look like disco lighting on a crane derrick.
All the buildings behind them will remain in darkness from first floor up. This situation resulted from the last change of public lamp standards which direct all the light almost directly down to street level.
The attachment of flood lights to the face of buildings detracts from their appearance in daytime and results in a ‘horror chamber’ effect at night. Most of the shops have blacked out their upper storey windows, so even the most attractive stores no longer emit light at night from upper levels.
The city council should review this situation, which seems rather ridiculous; they should black out the internal lighting and then hang floodlights outside to compensate.
A walk down Patrick Street at night reveals just how gloomy the place really is because of this combination of events. The most recently completed public space in Emmett Place had about 60% of its ‘new’ lighting unlit one week recently, and I wonder, given the number of individual lights on each crane derrick in Patrick Street, can we afford to maintain them? The experience of the Grand Parade ‘lamps,’ which are filthy and dysfunctional most of the time, would not give much reason for confidence.
Any private applicant seeking planning permission to erect these crane derricks would surely have been refused. This is not Barcelona.
Ted Murphy,
Ballincollig,
Co Cork.
