The Royal Park is intended to be a dark park and lighting has detrimental effects on animals and birds as well as humans. See paper by Dr Barry Clark on the effects of lighting here.

On the safety aspect it has been reported that Monash University’s XYX Lab, girls’ equality charity Plan International Australia, and ARUP lighting analysed 84 hotspots identified by Melbourne women as unsafe. Their findings showed that sites with higher light levels were more likely to be perceived as unsafe. See: AGE article