Rye bids for £10,000 of Christmas lights

The group is in the running to win £10,000 of new Christmas lights to help the town sparkle this yuletide.

Last year the revamped Rye Christmas Festival was a success, despite organisers facing being confronted with damaged brackets on listed buildings and potentially extortionate repair costs.

But this year the team hope to make the event bigger and better.

Rye has entered the Revive & Thrive Blachere Christmas Lighting competition in a bid to secure £10,000 worth of Christmas lighting.

Last year St Leonards and Hastings won first and second prize, and Rye is one step closer to joining them after it was shortlisted as one of 13 finalists.

Members of the Rye Christmas Festival committee will be heading to Colchester later this month to give a presentation in a bid to win the coveted prize.

The presentations will take place during the annual Revive & Thrive Conference and will be judged by an independent panel.

All finalists will receive at least £1,000 of lights.

Committee member Andrew May, owner of WJ Bennett, said: “I am so excited that we are one of the finalists in the Revive and Thrive Christmas Lighting competition, it was so frustrating last year to find out about the competition too late to make an entry, so this year we made sure that we entered on time!

“We had an amazing festival day last year and we did the best we could with the budget that we had for lighting but if we can win this competition it would be a real boost for the town and provide all important long term sustainability for the festival.”

The festival will take place on December 10 - visit www.christmasinrye.co.uk.

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