CHRISTMAS 2000 in Skipton could be a very dull affair since the Chamber of Trade renounced all responsibility for the festive street lights.

Members took the decision to show their disgust at the many High Street retailers who do not contribute anything financially to the lights and refuse to take responsibility for them.

Each year the Chamber of Trade encourages retailers to donate money to light up the town at Christmas but every time the burden falls on the same few people.

Ron Knox, the market traders representative, said: "Year on year we try to get money from businesses and they just won't part with it. I do not know why, they just don't."

He added that he could name about six businesses on the High Street which helped to pay for the lights.

Robert Hadaway, from Pottery and Pine, added that it was unfortunate that many High Street businesses would not give money for the lights as they were the ones to benefit from the increase in trade.

Terry Watson, from The Coffee Mill, said: "You are not going to get money from the nationals so you might as well forget it."

A Christmas sub-committee formed at the last meeting suggested trying to levy all the High Street shops dependent on size and location to pay for the lights.

David Goldie, who has a shop on High Street, said to put up the same display as last year would cost £5,450 excluding ongoing maintenance.

The Chamber of Trade was further hampered by the fact that Skipton Town Council had reduced its contribution by £2,000 to £3,000 this year.

Mayor Richard Colley said that the budget had already been set for this year and so it was unlikely there would be any extra money in the pot.

Mr Goldie asked members whether they would like to consider the levy which could be anything between £10 to £250. Chairman Anne Hadaway pointed out that the levy could never be made compulsory although it had been known to work in other towns like Harrogate.

Mark Reason, of Fresh AM, said he could not understand why that the Chamber of Trade was burdening itself with the Christmas lights.

He added that he could not believe that between Skipton Town Council and Craven District Council they could not fund Christmas lights for the town.

It was pointed out that in the past Craven District Council had refused to contribute any money to the Christmas lights in Skipton because it felt it would also have to give money to lights in other areas like Grassington and Ingleton.

Some of the retailers suggested that perhaps each individual shop could be encouraged to create its own window display so that shoppers could see immediately who the scrooge traders were.

Members were asked to vote on whether they wanted to continue to look at more detailed costings for the lights, or to pull out there and then and hand the responsibility back to the town council.

Robert Hadaway said: "If you vote to hand over to the town council then you are voting not to have any lights at all."

The move to keep responsibility for the lights was lost by 11 votes to 16.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.