PHUKET: Throwing the switch to light up the nights in Old Phuket Town was never going to be easy. But last night there it was, all lit up.

The bright lights in Old Phuket Town remain controversial and may yet be doomed to be dimmed.

In one of those classic Phuket cases of getting things half-right half of the time, the Phuket City Council and the Ministry of Tourism and Sport agreed to make the old place brighter.

Initially, the plan was to paint 15 houses for a budget of five million baht. When some of the Phuket home owners objected, the number of houses was reduced to five.

But at one million baht a house, that seemed to be an awful lot of paint.

So the decision was made to use the budget to light up part of Thalang Road and Soi Romanee with electric colors.

Phuketwan spied the lights being installed just a couple of weeks back. Tests completed last night showed that the lighting does have a very attractive impact, especially where the power lines have already been buried.

However, the installation by the Ministry of Tourism and Sport has yet to formally win the approval of the Phuket City Council, which has yet to win total approval of the house owners.

Switched on, or not? Phuket residents and tourists will just have to wait and see.