SOROPTIMIST president Pat Shore has warned that Harrogate town centre will look “miserable” next Christmas unless fundraisers come forward to help finance the festive lights. Mrs Shore is urging people to help keep the Harrogate at Christmas fundraising committee going, after the Harrogate branch of the Soroptimists stepped down at the start of 2008.
They have been responsible for ensuring Harrogate twinkles for each of the past five years, but now they are asking residents to take over the campaign to make the town shine. Harrogate Council allocates around ВЈ24,000 towards the coloured winter lights around the Stray, the small rows of white lights and five Christmas trees.
The Harrogate at Christamas group then aims to raise an additional ВЈ15,000 for the overhead displays and lamp post columns in Parliament Street and around the Victoria Shopping Centre. But Mrs Shore fears that unless someone volunteers to reform the group, there will not be any money available for the displays. She said: “If the council can not help and if nobody else comes forward then there won’t be any lights. We will just revert to where we were five years ago.
It will be miserable.” She has written to Harrogate Borough Council Leader Mike Gardner to ask whether it can increase its donation to cover the full cost of the lights In her letter to Coun Gardner, she said the lights have improved considerably since 2003 and that the feel good factor at Christmas had returned. But she said they cannot encourage anyone to continue the project and that they desperately needed money to meet the shortfall to cover the cost of maintenance, storage and upkeep.