The Royal Borough's lead councillor Andrew Johnson has firmly defended the decision to light up Maidenhead Town Hall and Maidenhead Bridge every night in honour of NHS staff battling the Corona virus.

He says there are plans for a similar display in Windsor.

The gesture in Maidenhead has been largely welcomed on social media - after the council tweeted that the cost was being met by individual companies who worked as contractors for the authority and would not be met by taxpayers.

But one dissenting tweeter asked: "Why spend more electricity and earth resources when the use of electricity is bigger now the public are at home.

"It's a waste of energy to do it every day. Once a year many people switch off the electricity for an hour to save the planet."

Most tweets expressed approval of the illuminations though.

The projection onto Maidenhead Town Hall reads 'thank-you key workers and the NHS' and illuminates the building from sunset to midnight.

It is the work of artist Ross Ashton whose famous Projection Studio in London specialises in eye watering illuminations.

This week Councillor Andrew Johnson, leader of the Royal Borough, said: “We are proud of each and every one of the key workers and this small token of our appreciation - delivered at no expense to the taxpayers by our dedicated contractors - is the least we could do.

“We are proud that our contractors have worked with us to enable lighting up landmarks in Maidenhead at no extra cost to the council and we are looking at doing the same in Windsor.

“It is a very unusual time at the moment and we felt it was important to recognise the many key workers who may be driving around the borough to show that we are thinking of them and thank them for the contribution to help deal with this pandemic.”