LOCAL businesses are being given the chance to rescue Christmas in Skipton through a £20,000 campaign launched this week.

Residents will be facing a miserable show of Christmas lights if the appeal is not successful because at the moment there is not enough money in the kitty to put up the same display of lights as last year.

Members of Skipton Town Council budgeted £2,500 for the lights but at least £5,450 is needed to restore and put up the illuminations.

The crisis arose in April when Skipton's Chamber of Trade handed back responsibility of the town's lights to the council after many years of struggling to get multi-national companies in Skipton to help pay for the illuminations.

However, by this time council members had already set the budget for the year which included the mere £2,500 for Christmas lights.

At a public relations committee meeting last week, Fresh AM station manager Mark Reason challenged the council to stump up £6,000 as they did for the millennium lights and he said he would campaign to get local businesses to raise an additional £14,000.

"We need £20,000 really to go forward, or year on year we are going to be having these meetings. We need to invest now so that each year from here only top up money is needed," he said.

Mr Reason told members he could fund the whole spectacle but suggested if the council only contributed £2,500 that it would lay itself open to criticism.

"That amount does not even fund the fairy lights," he added.

Craven District Council has also been approached to make a donation to the town's lights.

Mr Reason said he had challenged chief executive Rachel Mann to match him pound for pound up to £3,000.

But the council had turned down the offer because it made no financial contribution to lights in surrounding villages.

"It must be a nice position to be in. Just because the area that you have control over has separate centres, you can't give one without the other. That is absolutely farcical," he claimed.

Robin Moule, a member of Skipton Chamber of Trade, said a decision on the lights and the town council's contribution had to be made urgently.

He added that lights and decorations were usually ordered in March or April to ensure they were in stock and they were not priced at a premium.

The money for the lights needs to be collected by the end of October.

Councillors agreed to ask members of the finance committee if the budget could be stretched to £6,500.

Chairman John Spencer said that if Fresh AM did not fund the lights there would not be any.

"It was a very generous offer by Mark Reason to try to raise this amount, but it seems a large contribution would be welcome from the town council," he told the meeting.

The town council's finance committee was due to meet last night (Thursday) when the request for extra funding was on the agenda.

People wanting to pledge cash donations or wanting to get involved in a fundraising event should contact Mr Reason on 01756 799991.

Donations can also be made at HSBC into the Fresh AM Christmas Lights Appeal account.