Have your say at the bottom of the page.

Read the letters below.

Lake Wendouree is an outstanding facility and differentiates Ballarat from many other regional centres.

Let's get this lighting in place, it will greatly increase safety and enable utilisation during the colder months as well as enhancing the City's reputation as providing world class recreational areas.

As a very regular lake user it is well overdue. I call on the decision makers to get on with it for all our sakes.

I would not like to think that the community of Ballarat was somehow beholden to the views of a minority with vested interests if that is the case.

As a family and individual friendly facility it is without peer and is the pride of Ballarat.

Just get on with making it even better.

Craig Spinks, Ballarat

There is zero demand from the community for this lighting and it is absurd to claim lighting the path around the lake would improve safety.

Quite the opposite is likely to occur. Few but the very brave will use the paths after dark, be they male or female.

This poorly thought through proposal effectively provides a catwalk for victims to parade along.

It is entirely possible that if they were to be installed these lights could lead to the development of these areas as gathering points for anti-social behaviour.

It's time this awful proposal was pulled from consideration before any more embarrassment is caused.

Patrick Hockey, Clunes

Lake Wendouree path most definitely needs lighting for those who cannot access it during daylight hours from a safety aspect .

Rick Blanchfield, Ballarat East

The Courier article about the Lake Lighting project July 5, refers to "the much-needed lighting."

However a close study of the thousands of pages of documents about the project which have been made public do not indicate any attempt to determine what the 'need' is for this expensive project.

The permit application states that 'approximately 1,600 pedestrians use the site on weekdays and 1,700 use the site on weekends.' But neglects to acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of these use the path during daylight hours.

The only publicly available usage data counts of walkers passing Loretto Point in 2018/19 is conveniently ignored. This data shows that the number who used the path during times when the lights would be on averaged fewer than about a dozen per day.

The question remaining unanswered is "where are the details which would justify the expenditure of over $2.5 million dollars of public money on a project which seems to benefit so few?'

Stuart Kelly, Ballarat West.