Beloved Lake Monger Christmas tree lights could be getting shut off amid apparent costs, environmental damage

It could be the last Christmas for a popular Lake Monger festive tree, with a Cambridge councillor demanding the lights be turned off permanently amid cost and environmental damage fears.

Councillor Gavin Foley used Tuesday’s council’s agenda briefing to call for better environmental practice to be exercised with ratepayer funds.

His suggestion — which will be voted on by the council next week — included three requests, with one targeting the ‘Christmas tree’ at Lake Monger that has acted as a centrepoint of Christmas celebrations in Cambridge since 1995.

The official lighting of the Christmas tree is a festival tradition and since 2003 that has happened as part of the Lake Monger Christmas Festival and Carols.

But Cr Foley said the cost of doing so has been an irresponsible use of ratepayer funds and the Norfolk pine tree has suffered because of the tradition.

“For the last 20-plus years the town has hung approximately 900 fossil-fuelled lights on a pine tree at Lake Monger for no good reason,” Cr Foley shared in his written reasoning.

“These lights have been left on for two months, 24 hours a day in the past until I managed, after eight years, to have them put on a timer. In the last few years, they have been left on until well after sun up.

“Based on information from the town, the very act of putting light strings on a pine tree at Lake Monger has driven that tree into ill health.

“The answer to that problem was to transfer the problem to the next tree in line, which will undoubtedly suffer the same fate as the first tree.”

According to the town, the cost to council to decorate the Christmas tree last year was $26,620.

It is typically lit up each night from December 1 to January 6, with lights out at midnight.

Council staff hit back at the suggestion by pointing out the tree lights had seemingly been appreciated by locals over a long period of time.

“Notwithstanding their environmental impact, the lights are a community focused initiative, which has been in place since 1995 and represent a tradition which residents may value,” the administration’s comment read.

“Any decision to discontinue the lights should be subject to community engagement.”

Cr Foley’s further requests included that awards presented to homes involved in the Cambridge Christmas Lights Trail should be limited to only those displaying non-fossil fuelled decorations, which town staff rebuffed because they do not have the resources to monitor individual homes’ power sources.

Such limitations would also reduce the number of eligible nominations for the competition, they added.

Cr Foley claimed that putting up Christmas lights outside of homes was “unnecessary”, given most homes have their own lit-up indoor Christmas tree.

“It is fiscally irresponsible to use ratepayer funds for short-term gratification that damages the very home that we all rely on,” he said.

“There is no plan B.”

The council will decide on Mr Foley’s motion next Tuesday.