RE: ‘Let there be lights Tauranga' (The Weekend Sun, March 18). This story about Blake Park/Bay Oval's lighting proposal via Kelvin Jones is absurd.

The cost of installing lights could be up to $3 million for about 3000kW lighting. There is no demand, no requirement nor any need for this and it will prove to be of no use to cricket - in a nutshell, it is a white elephant.

Seemingly the only matches Bay Oval will get are two summer New Year holiday One Day International games played in the daytime during daylight saving with good attendances. Why on earth would you need lights on a bright summer's day?

It is understood Dunedin City Council has just turned down a lighting request from Otago Cricket because it would not stack up. In fact funding could not be justified because NZ Cricket and the local association couldn't guarantee international night games. In other words, a business case could never be made out in these circumstances.

If Bay Oval is hell-bent on this ‘pie in the sky' then provide all the funds from its own resources or get the City Amenities Group to front up via their philanthropy policy, as two of them are very closely associated with Bay Oval!
Tauranga City Council via TCC ratepayers must not provide any future funding for Bay Oval developments.

R Paterson, Matapihi