Town’s annual festive lights have been going up since the beginning of October, ready for the big switch-on by Santa on Saturday 29 November.
Local company Event Hire is responsible for making sure the thousands of lights go up quickly and efficiently and were hard at work yesterday morning in Church Square.
‘There’s 21,000 lights in Smith Street and probably about the same here outside the Town Church,’ said Event Hire managing director Shaun Broughton.
‘We’ve done all the High Street arrays, Smith Street’s all done, the Market Buildings, Market Square, and Mill Street’s done, it’s pretty much just the Bordage to do.’
However he said the charity behind the lights was always looking for more funding.
‘Everyone loves the lights, but perhaps don’t realise how much they cost, and it’s always been difficult to raise money for them,’ he said.
‘We try to keep our fees as low as possible. Luckily, this year, they had a grant from the St Peter Port constables, so we’ve been able to refurbish a lot of stuff, and actually managed to reintroduce some lights.
‘Next year, hopefully, if the fundraising goes well, we’ll be able to buy new ones. If anyone wants to donate or get involved they can visit the Christmas lights website.’
With the lights nearly up, Event Hire will now start work with Guernsey Electricity to test all the electrics.
The biggest factors in getting the lights up are wind and road closures, but Mr Broughton said the weather had been kind this year.
‘We haven’t missed any days this year,’ he said. ‘We had one week where it was really windy and we couldn’t do much high up, so we went and worked somewhere else. Traffic & Highways are really helpful when it comes to moving permits around to allow us to close roads and work safely.’
To donate to the lights appeal and for more information visit www.christmaslights.gg.
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