There has recently been some understandable discussion about why, for the first time in nine years, there will be no Christmas lights in Coulsdon this coming winter. I thought it worth setting out the situation, so that everyone can understand just what’s happened and what we can all collectively do about it to ensure it doesn’t happen again in 2022.
Coulsdon Yulefest
For those who don’t know, Coulsdon Yulefest is made up of a small band of incredible local volunteers. They each give up months of their year every year to get our local Christmas festival up and running.
Usually falling on the first weekend of December, it sees dozens of local craft, food and gift stalls meticulously organised along a section of the town centre with main stage entertainment provided throughout. Local school children sing carols, local performers croon to the crowd, and there is always a packed Christmas light switch on as darkness descends on our town.
It’s good for local community spirit, good for local traders, and a great advert for our wonderful town.
Yulefest has always been a personal highlight of the civic calendar, which is why I want everyone to truly appreciate just how much work goes into making it happen.
Many of you will be surprised to learn that it’s largely managed by just three passionate local residents, whilst other volunteers join in at various stages, it’s a very small core team who dedicate their year to bringing Christmas cheer to Coulsdon.
With their dogged determination, they have successfully hosted a Yulefest in Coulsdon for seven of the last 9 years – 2020 and 2021 sadly having to be cancelled due to Covid-19.
Regardless of what’s happened this year, they all deserve our heartfelt thanks for their community service.
All of the below has been told to me by the organisers of Yulefest.
The Cost of Yulefest
I have spoken to the organisers of Yulefest who tell me that to put on the festival costs approximately £10,000 each year. That’s not too hard to imagine when you think about it.
Croydon Council charges in my view exorbitant fees to temporarily close roads for community events – that makes up a big chunk of the cost.
Then there’s the stage, electrical supply, portable toilets, security, health and safety and a whole host of other provisions that the Yulefest volunteers needs for the event to be able to proceed – none of that comes cheap.
In some years rather than sponsors giving money they offer services, for example I know the printing of the banners for the festival is provided for free by the excellent Advanced Print. But even with that generosity there is still a lot of work that has to take place to ensure the funding is there for the festival to happen.
Current Covid social distancing regulations means that fewer stalls are allowed to occupy the same stretch of road, which means any rental income from those stalls into Yulefest coffers is dramatically reduced. Add other new costs, such as hand sanitising stations, and you can see how the price of hosting a Covid-secure Yulefest is even higher than it would usually be.
This provides its own challenges: there historically hasn't been enough local businesses and residents who currently volunteer their time or donate funds/services for Yulefest to carry on forever.
Some residents have asked if the local branches of the big chains have been approached for sponsorship: yes they have. Waitrose, Aldi, PizzaExpress, Cafe Nero and others all have national corporate Christmas charities and told Yulefest they have very little budget available to spend on local good causes.
Every single year the small band of Yulefest volunteers tries their hardest to get local traders and more from the community involved only for it to sadly fall largely on deaf ears. This is a great shame. The last few years have been tough for local SMEs, so understandably their priority is protecting their businesses, but the truth is that their reticence to support Yulefest stretches back way before Covid was a thing.
We desperately need more businesses and more local people to volunteer to help make Yulefest a success. So please, everyone reading this right now email [email protected] and offer to help the team out in whatever way they can – big or small.
I worry that if we don’t have more local people supporting it, then Coulsdon Yulefest may never return to our town. That cannot be allowed to happen.
The Cost of the Christmas Lights
For the last five years, Yulefest has had a contract to rent the lights from a specialist company that’s used in most of the district centres around Croydon. It agreed a price for ‘motif lights’ (the patterned ones that stick out) and ‘wraparound lights’ (the LED ones that twist around the lamppost) was about £3.5k each year to rent.
The Council’s lighting contractor is Mile Infrastructure (formally Skanska), they are the ones who have to install and officially switch on the lights for safety and insurance reasons. In the Council’s contract there is a line that says MI must install Christmas lights for free, but MI have supposedly noticed that the contract only says the free installation applies to ‘motif’ lights. They therefore refuse to install the ‘wraparound’ lights for free. This has increased the cost of installing our lights.
The five-year rental contract has also ended, with its agreed price, and the lighting supplier has also increased their fee.
All told the cost of installing the lights has gone up from £3,500 to £6,100 each year.
Why not buy the lights instead of renting them?
The Yulefest team have explored this, but thought it too costly given the sums they needed to raise.
It would cost approximately £10,000 to buy the lights as a one off. This is a very hard sum for a small group of volunteers to fundraise in one year, particularly when you factor in the apprehension from local residents and businesses to help out.
Even if they bought the lights, they would need to be stored, each year they would need to be repaired, and other costs (inc the electricity bill and installation) would each year need to be fundraised. The Yulefest team estimates this will cost approximately another £3,000 each year.
So a £10,000 one off cost, plus £3,000 annually, if they were to buy rather than rent the lights. Or £6,100 to rent them each year. The latter smaller figure is simply easier to fundraise for on an ongoing basis.
Coulsdon Town Councillors funding our Christmas Lights
For five of the seven years that Coulsdon Yulefest has happened, the Conservative Coulsdon Town Councillors have used our ‘Community Ward Budget’ to help pay for the Christmas lights.
It’s all published online, but it amounts to about £3,700 each year. So in total we have given over £17,000 to fund the annual Christmas lights.
The Community Ward Budgets were a small pot of cash allocated by Croydon Council to each councillor to fund good local work: it could be a new park bench; supporting a brilliant local charity or helping to put on a fantastic community event.
Many of you will be aware that the current Labour administration that runs Croydon Council was forced to declare bankruptcy last year as a result of their terrible financial decisions. That is having a major impact on many services in particular affecting the most vulnerable residents in our borough – but it has also impacted our Community Ward Budgets. They were sadly slashed by the Labour, and so for 2021 we local councillors have been unable to contribute to paying for the lights.
We are deeply upset that all the good community work that goes on around Coulsdon is suffering as a result of Labour’s bankruptcy, and can only hope a change of administration in the May local elections kicks them out so we can get back to a Council that truly delivers for Coulsdon.
Councillor budgets not enough for 2022
With the new increased cost of renting and installing lights, even the £3,700 that we usually donate each year would not be enough to cover the cost of the lights.
Remember it’s £10,000 to buy plus £3,000 annual maintenance or it’s now £6,100 to rent the lights.
So whatever happens next year, we all as a local community somehow need to fundraise to meet either the gap (if ward budgets are reinstated) or the full cost (if the Council’s £1.5 billion bankruptcy cannot be fixed in time).
It’s too late for 2021
The Yulefest team start talking to the lighting supplier in June each year to place their order. The whole process must be completed no later than September for the Christmas lights to arrive for December - that's according to 'Festive Lighting' the lighting supplier.
Sadly, even if we found the extra cash needed, the lighting supplier says it's too late for the Christmas lights to come to Coulsdon for this Christmas.
How can local people help?
There are two main ways that anyone in Coulsdon can help to bring Yulefest and the Christmas lights back to Coulsdon for 2022.
The first is to fundraise and donate! Coulsdon Yulefest have set up a JustGiving page to help them start the ball rolling for 2022. Sadly there has yet to be a donation to Yulefest to allow them to continue next winter.
If you are a local business, is there a service you could provide to help them reduce costs?
The second way to help is to volunteer to support the small team. It is such a huge job for three people to pull off, and we don’t want them burning out! So please, big or small, please email [email protected] and offer to help. It could be helping to run their social media, or offering to help drum up support among local businesses. It could be working with local charities or talking to suppliers to get the best possible deals. Perhaps you can help to run one of their many fundraising initiatives? Whatever it is you think you can contribute, get in touch today and have an informal chat with the team to see how they might best use your skills.
If we don’t raise enough to support Coulsdon Yulefest, or if more of us don’t volunteer our time to make it happen, then it just will not happen. It’s as simple as that.
A note to local businesses
I have been a councillor in Coulsdon since 2014, and in that time we have tried three times to set up a Coulsdon Business Partnership – a group where all local traders can get together to support each other, work as a group to fix local issues, and collectively lobby the Council for support.
Part of that would have been a small membership donation each year that goes into a central pot which the CBP would use to fund whatever they felt was needed to support local SMEs in Coulsdon. It could be used to pay (for example) for leaflets to advertise a food festival, refreshed banners on the high street or contribute to a large community event that brings thousands of people to our town.
Sadly, every time we’ve tried to set it up it falls at the first hurdle: no local business seems to be willing to step forward to help run it. It needs to be formally constituted, and it needs to be managed effectively with regular meetings and more, that understandably takes a little bit of time - and it seems at the moment no local business is willing to invest the time to make it a success. That’s a terrible shame. I passionately believe that if we got this up and running it would hugely help our district centre.
New Addington, Purley and Croydon Town Centre have a Business Improvement District and that makes a huge difference to their communities – the Council is ready to help, but for it to happen in Coulsdon we need local businesses to be willing to lead on it. Take a look and see what Purley BID has achieved.
I’m intending on having another swing at this in the new year, but if you are reading this and interested in getting involved then please email me at [email protected].
Don’t do nothing – help Yulefest!
Many local people have taken to social media to express their disappointment that the Christmas lights haven’t come to Coulsdon this year – but we need to all help to make it happen!
Please, whether it’s through donating, fundraising or volunteering, please don’t do nothing. We need more than keyboard warriors to make this event a success. If you can’t donate, then email [email protected] if you can volunteer to support part of the operation.
Coulsdon Yulefest Needs You!
As ever if I or my Coulsdon Town colleagues can help with anything else concerning Coulsdon then please do not hesitate to get in touch by emailing [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected].
UPDATE! 17TH NOVEMBER 2021
I'm delighted to say that following this post a huge and welcome conversation has taken place across Coulsdon social media. As a result: hundreds of pounds has started to be donated to Yulefest to help with 2022, a number of local businesses have contacted me keen to help set up the Coulsdon Business Partnership; a good number of you have got in touch with the Yulefest team to help run next year's event - this will hopefully start to ensure the future of Yulefest is sustainable so that it continues long into the future.
But there's even better news. The information provided to me that inspired this post has changed - the lighting provider actually did have lights and despite earlier claims they actually can supply them at short notice. Despite earlier information, Mile Infrastructure are now prepared to install them as soon as their schedule allows, most likely the second week of December. As a result of some tenacious local residents and businesses, funds were rapidly secured and Christmas lights will be coming to Coulsdon this year!
This is absolutely fantastic news. For a full update on what's happened, please read our latest blog.
