Last updated 13:20, Tuesday, 05 August 2008

MILLOM is looking to spruce up its festive lights with some of Blackpool’s famous illuminations.

If the plan goes ahead the bright bulbs would be put up across town centre areas such as Wellington Street and Market Square during next year’s Christmas period.

Councillor Joan Hobbs told this month’s Millom Town Council meeting: “We had a tourism meeting a couple of weeks ago and everyone in the meeting expressed horror at the state of Millom’s Christmas lights. I understand that if we buy some of our own Copeland Borough Council will install any that we happen to get.

“They sell off excess lights from Blackpool Illuminations and I think it would be a good idea to have a look to see what they have. I think they would be a lot better than the ones we get from Copeland council, though we would have to fund them ourselves.

“It was very nice having the tree on the post office last year and I think we should extend on that. We are thinking about putting a big tree up to make an impact when people come into Millom.”

After the meeting she said: “The Blackpool lights wouldn’t be for this year as the sale doesn’t start until January but we are hoping to make a bigger deal of this year’s display in other ways.”

Each year Blackpool Illuminations cost around £2.4m to produce drawing in crowds from all over the world. Since last year the group in charge of the event has sold sections of lights from previous years’ displays through auction and at the sale in January.

In 1999 the illuminations spread over six miles and used 1454kw of electricity. This has since been reduced by 37 per cent using green technology to 915kw.

Blackpool Illuminations will take place between August 29 and November 2.

Commercial and marketing manager for Blackpool Illuminations Nicola Atanassova said: “We did have a lady from Millom make an enquiry into buying some lights.

“Last year was the first year we did the sale. We get an awful amount of interest. We mostly get enquiries from this country but we did have some interest from people in Europe, places like Spain and Holland.

“The price of different themes vary. Last year the majority of them sold for between £50 and £500 but we did have one rocket that sold for £10,000, but that is an exception.

“We have lights on sale that go back five or six years and also some from the last 12 months.

“We will be releasing a catalogue before the sale to show people what we have on offer.

“All the money we raise from the sale goes back into the illuminations for the following year.”

South Copeland Tourism Group is due meet at Millom Network Centre on August 19 to discuss this year’s Christmas display.