This is a ridiculous use of council funding.

[ThatUniqueKoala]

Local council have install love hearts on all the street lights, installed a giant 4ft odd love heart in the middle of town, giant "Love" signs across the high street and today I've noticed they have a nightly laser show which projects love hearts and kissing lips onto a nearby property.

I'll try to share pictures but I'm unsure if pictures are disabled at the moment.

AIBU to think this is a ridiculous waste of public money? The roads are in awful condition, most of the bus shelters in the area are smashed with glass all over the pavements, drains are blocked causing flooding every time it rains and the bins in public areas are often overflowing because there's supposedly not enough staff or resources to empty them frequently.

It is indeed entirely ridiculous. I am trying to guess where it might be ... Brighton?

@Mischance Kimberley, Nottinghamshire

True. Makes no sense.

Well if it’s to raise awareness for tourist spot it’s done the job! I’d never heard of Kimberley before.

I live near here and disagree. In current times with the high street on its knees, I think it’s nice to do something different to bring a bit of community spirit and footfall to the high street shops.

The money spent on a large cardboard heart and a projector (which is being used for every event, Halloween etc) will be minimal.

I also admittedly don’t fully know how their funding stream works, but this is Kimberley town council and I have read that they have been awarded funding/grants specifically for these projects. I suspect the individual businesses foot the bill for their own decorations too.

Roadworks and repairs will be from a different pot and possibly an entirely different council.

The Halloween decorations were really great too!

Also.. the main bus stop is sometimes smashed yes, and then repaired, and then smashed again. Blame the fools who do it.

It floods when it’s torrential rain because there is a dip in the road.

You’re being quite sensationalist with your post here I think, presuming that noone else local would be on here!

It's not a tourist spot.

The D.H. Lawrence Birthplace Museum is in the next town over, they've got no such decorations and there's the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, probably 40 minutes drive away, again nothing Valentine's day related going on.

I like it. We need much more gentle positivity and fun in the UK, especially at this time of year.

I don’t see it as a “waste.” The public realm is inportant for health and wellbeing - hence why councils also spend on things like flower displays and public murals. Why shouldn’t some council funding be spent on things that people just walking down the Highstreet can appreciate and feel cheered by? How depressing otherwise, to think that the huge amount we pay in council tax is just spent clearing up other people’s messes, putting right their vandalism, and getting rid of their trash.

Our council paid ridiculous amounts for an "community artist" to do street works.

I believe what he did was walk round the town and listen to what people were saying, then choose parts of what they said to put on stones on the high street. So when they went down, the stones had odd words like "went to John's" or "bigger than". Fast forward about 3 years and all the words had worn off anyway.

I'm not an artist but I could think of several better ideas that would have cost less, lasted better and been much better at involving the community.

But @MargaretThursday your council has probably run consultations asking for exactly that sort of input.

Are your shops in a BID zone? If they are, it'll be the BID and not the council who have paid for it (shops / businesses club together to pay for things like this to draw in more business).

Isn't it advertising a festival of some sort? Is there one in the town? It just looks like it's trying to jazz it up for valentine's day or something.
I'm sure there are plenty of more meaningful things they couldn't done with the cash. But maybe they ring fence money for silly things like this I think and then just waste the budget as it can't be fed back into the main coffers? I am just guessing here as never had the pleasure of working in local government!

In my town, this stuff doesn't come from the main council budget but from a Business Improvement District budget that comes from a levy on town businesses. it's controversial because some businesses say they don't see any increased revenue from it, but I do often go to the free events etc they put on and spend a bit in cafes and shops that I wouldn't have done otherwise.

They didn't, not to the general public. Nor for the "artistic" oversized porridge pots that also cost ridiculous amounts and do nothing except make it difficult for visually impaired people to walk up the High Street.
They did have a consultation about the pattern of tiles on another street after the visually impaired people had pointed this out. They apparently consulted them, listened to what they had to say, then chose the design they said was least helpful to them. Although, thinking about it, that might have been the self-important BID people instead.

It's pretty normal for local authorities to spend money trying to entice people back to town centres isn't it? Ours certainly tries to make sure there's something going on to coax people there (most of the shopping is done at the large out of town shopping centre) and decorations are part of that . Good for you if your town doesn't need that.

Money came from levelling up fund award from central government so not from local council taxes