24/11/2022
In previous years we would now be readying to attend the Guildford Christmas light switch-on, a joyous event which brought together around 7000 people on our beautiful high street for a night of light and celebrations. It united people from across the Borough and beyond, of all backgrounds and ages. And it gave a welcome annual boost to local retail and hospitality.
Sadly, this highlight of our civic calendar has been cancelled for a third year running by the Lib Dem-R4GV administration of Guildford Borough Council.
The cancellations in 2020 and 2021 amidst the pandemic and related restrictions, made sense. This year, the cancellation boggles the mind.
The Council has justified it on the grounds that it ‘cannot afford the cost of crowd control’.
We would argue that the benefits to the high street and to community life more than justify that cost, small in the wider scheme of Council spending. And Councils all around us are running Christmas light switch-ons while Guildford is left behind.
But there is more.
Guildford’s Business Improvement District (BID), a mouthpiece for local businesses, made clear in statements carried by the Surrey Advertiser that if asked they could have carried the cost of putting on this event. So with a little imagination there was no affordability question at all.
How could the Lib Dem-R4GV administration not have thought to consider other options to let us have a 2022 Christmas light switch-on? Did they lack the desire, the will, or the imagination? Or some combination of the above?
Whichever one it is, our community, and especially the businesses who make our high street what it is, have lost out because of this decision.
Town Centre Conservatives will do what we can to ensure that this enormity is not repeated next year, such that in 2023 we can finally, after 4 long years, once again meet at a Guildford Christmas light switch-on.
