Preparing for brighter Christmas (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Preparing for brighter Christmas

11:55am Wednesday 23rd April 2008 in

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IT may only be spring but city centre bosses in Winchester are preparing their latest weapon in the battle for a bigger slice of the lucrative Christmas trade - a spectacular £200,000 light show.

Environmentally friendly LED lights will be strung across streets, shop fronts and in trees to turn the historic city into a winter wonderland in the city's bid to lure in shoppers from across the region.

Winchester is already a magnet for shoppers in December with a popular ice rink and Christmas market in the Cathedral Close leaving other regional retail centres struggling to compete.

The spectacular is funded by the new Business Improvement District (BID), which sees firms pay a surcharge based on their rates for extra services and comes on top of the existing £20,000 worth of Christmas lighting funded by the city council.

Organisers claim the massive increase in lights won't damage the environment because the LED lights use just one eighth the power of a traditional bulb and they intend to plant trees, among other schemes, to offset the impact.

The council is also aiming to replace all 3,500 of its bulbs with low carbon lamps.

Keith Wilson, assistant city centre manager for Winchester, said: "We are looking at attracting shoppers from a 30 minute drive away and to offer something for the tourists who visit the city over Christmas.

"It is going to be a hugely visible difference right across the commercial area of the city from how it was this year. It will be designed to complement the lighting which is already provided.

"Businesses can expect to see lights in a variety of areas where they weren't put before and a clearly visible impact in areas which did have lights before."

He said lights were what businesses had repeatedly asked for during consultations about what BID money should be spent on and there would be carefully monitoring of their impact.

"Attracting more shoppers is the goal and we will be monitoring the footfall in the city centre carefully to see what impact we are having," he said.