THE ongoing cost-of-living crisis turned local councillors into Grinches when they discussed plans for Christmas festivities in Wellington this year.

Members of Wellington Town Council’s town centre committee agreed to set a budget of £10,500 for the community’s festive celebrations.

But, they were Grinch-like in refusing to splash the cash any further to brighten up Christmas for people still facing increased household bills and struggling to make ends meet.

The past two years saw the council use funding from the Government-backed Emergency High Street Recovery Fund to help finance its Christmas plans.

More than £6,500 came from that emergency fund to help finance the festivities in Wellington last year, with a further £4,284 coming from the town council.

This year, the majority of the focus will go just to switching on Christmas lights in the town centre on November 25.

It was suggested street entertainment could also be arranged on Saturdays leading up to the switch-on, on December 2, 9 and 16, as well as on Thursday, December, 21.

But councillors raised their eyebrows when they were faced with a possible bill in the region of £19,000, with street entertainment costing nearly £7,600.

Sean Pringle-Kosikowsky, a member of the town centre committee but not a councillor, said he had the ongoing cost-of-living crisis at the back of his mind when thinking about how much to spend on Christmas celebrations.

Mr Pringle-Kosikowsky said: “The cost to have entertainment such as people walking around on stilts, for example, seems incredibly high.

“I would not feel good that the town council was spending that amount of money on this.”

Deputy mayor Cllr Catherine Govier said: “Do we really need all the entertainment on the other Saturdays leading up to Christmas rather than just the lights switch-on? We are relying on people turning up.”

Cllr Mark Lithgow said: “I would find it hard to justify these costs. I am mindful of spending a shed load of money on things when we have not really got the evidence to say it brings in thousands of people to the town centre.

“The mayor (Cllr Marcus Barr) has been campaigning for a number of years about lowering the cost of Christmas, and here we are talking about spending more.”

Wellington trader Marion Evans, who also sits on the committee as a non-councillor, said: “The amount of money being talked about is a lot and I think we need to be a bit more sensible.

“Christmas is becoming more and more commercial – should not we just bring it back to basics?”

Proposals which included having extra entertainment in the town for the lights switching-on including a toy set ride, a giant snow globe, and a Santa’s Grotto at a cost of £4,100 were rejected by the committee.

However, included in the Christmas plans will be free parking on November 25 in the car parks in North Street, South Street, and Longforth Road – which will be funded by the town council to the tune of £1,000.

Cllr Chris Booth said: “I think the free parking goes down well with people and we have to be mindful that we are still in that cost-of-living crisis.”

It was also suggested that a special guest should be invited to switch on the Christmas lights along with Wellington’s own former BBC man, Clinton Rogers, to act as compere.

A final decision on the recommendations will be made at Wellington Town Council’s monthly meeting on September 4.