Information on Christmas lights in the village for 2022
At its meeting on Tuesday evening, Sutton Bridge Parish Council accepted revised terms from Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) for attaching Christmas lights to 21 streetlight columns in Sutton Bridge.
The Parish Council wishes to make it clear that it did so because it believes that parishioners really want a festive atmosphere on the streets of Sutton Bridge during the darkest month of the year, and because if the Parish Council did not submit to LCC’s requirements, putting up these decorations in time for Christmas would not be possible.
The basis for the arrangement was around a lower one-off fee of £350 being charged by LCC. As a matter of principle, the Parish Council believes that no such charge should be imposed, as it is convinced that this is a form of double taxation on local electors, and that through such payment the Parish Council will be subsidising LCC’s other activities, services for which local electors are already charged. The Parish Council noted that of the other nearby principal councils with which it had checked (namely: Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Leicestershire), none applied a charge for this service to parish councils. Putting up festive lights was rightly seen as providing a public benefit.
Whilst the Parish Council understands that a duty of care exists around the safety of attachments to streetlight columns and that an appropriate licencing system is necessary, it had informed LCC as to where it continued to disagree with the County’s policy on the matter. It is hoped that the County Council will modify this policy for the better, at the earliest opportunity.
Robert Smith
Clerk
27 October 2022