Lighting up Astwood Bank for Christmas 

With a month to go before the big day Astwood Bank has turned on its first ever community Christmas lights along Evesham Road.

The last few weeks have seen some amazing local community spirit to raise the funds for the installation of Christmas lights. The initiative started by the Astwood Bank Carnival team has seen thousands of pounds raised in a very short time. The foundation for the funding was created by the Astwood Bank Carnival team when two years ago it decided it wanted to fund a community wide initiative in addition to Astwood Bank in Bloom that it established in 2015.

Having done some background research earlier in the year the team decided in only September that it would go all out to raise the funds to get the lights up in time for this Christmas. So with the strong financial foundation provided by the Carnival team, local residents businesses and organisations were all contacted to help raise the remaining funding that was required.

Although fund raising continues, as the plan is to have the lights up every year, and hopefully expand them over time, so far money has been raised through online crowdfunding, sponsorship of the lights by Astwood Carpentry Ltd, Paul and Lyn Draper, SE Davis, Thomas Bros and The Bell, donations from the public in collection tins, and the support of both local Worcestershire County Councillors Jane Potter and Roger Bennett.

Craig Warhurst the driving force behind the project commented: “We are delighted that first of all the events organised by the Carnival Committee have raised the funds to put us in this strong position, and I’m delighted to say that with the support of local businesses and our crowdfunding efforts we have achieved our target for this year of having eight displays attached to the lamp posts between the traffic lights and the Bell Inn. Our aim now is to ensure we continue this high level of support to both maintain the lights over future years and with an eye on expanding them in the future.”

Those looking to help with this initiative can both donate online via www.crowdfunder.co.uk/astwood-bank-christmas-lights or can contact Craig Warhurst at  c.warhurst@erauk.net