Cash and volunteers needed to keep Chatteris Christmas Lights display going

The Chatteris Christmas Lights committee has made an urgent appeal for more volunteers and for financial help - warning that if people do not come forward then the display will end.

They need more people to help put up the lights and have to raise more than £50,000 - with an October 2027 deadline.

The annual display is powered by 36 businesses and homes, with 2,000m of cable and 258 sockets attached to them, but much of the infrastructure and lights are more than 30 years old and do not meet current electrical standards.

Each year the committee has to apply to Cambridgeshire County Council for a licence, with the application requiring many hours of work - and last year, they were told the electrical system needed to be completely replaced.

Simon Wilson, from the group, said: “After many more hours of paperwork, the council worked with us and approved a schedule of works that we have to adhere to. We have just three years to replace the entire electrical system, and if we don’t complete this, we won’t be issued a license, and it will be the end of Chatteris Christmas Lights.

“The parts required are going to cost around £15,000, the testing/sign off around £5,000 and installation costs between £25,000 and £30,000. It’s a mega amount of money we just don’t have.

“Chatteris Town Council has been really helpful and is supporting us with some additional funding, but they can’t cover all the costs.

“One of our volunteers is an electrician, and if we can get together a team of new volunteers, we can install most of it, reducing the total cost by a considerable amount, but we need people to step up and help.

“We currently have 16 volunteers in our system and seven committee members with an age range between 16 and 79. Each year, it takes up to 16 days to put up and take down the lights, with people giving as little or as much time as they can.

“It would be amazing if we could boost our volunteer numbers so this additional work doesn’t put too much pressure on the current team.

“If you’ve thought about helping with the lights in the past but never got around to it, or maybe you’ve thought ‘I’d like to help, but it’s way too wet and cold in the winter months’, now’s the time to get involved.

“We will be doing the work over weekends starting in May and have to complete them by September. If you only come for one day, it would help us out massively.”

The committee is also in desperate need of financial support to complete this work, with the lights costing around £21,000 each year, on top of the electrical work.

To make a donation, visit www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/ccl2024

You can join the Facebook page at www.facebook.com/share/g/PpXh14nrvXGK6eV7/?mibextid=K35XfP

For more information email christmaslightschatteris@gmail.com