SSE has helped to ensure Nottingham celebrates Christmas in style by lighting up the city over the festive period.
For the fifth year in a row SSE, working with Tay Valley Lighting and Nottingham City Council in a partnership created by its PFI contract, lit up the city centre in the area around the ice rink and Christmas market as well as several outlying areas.
The lights were switched on at a successful event in the city’s Old Market Square last month, attended by around 3,000 people and Councillor Ian Malcolm, the current Lord Mayor of Nottingham.
The 60-foot-high tree at the centre of the celebrations was installed and decorated by SSE using more than 4,000 new low energy LED lights, sourced and paid for by the local authority, with nine additional 25-foot-high trees placed in district centres across the city .
SSE’s Lighting Services team began working on the project back in August, as Lighting Services Operations Manager George Marshall explained: “We worked very closely with Nottingham City Council and Tay Valley Lighting on this and it’s basically a two to three month lead-in period as we started testing the festive decorations back in August, and spent September and October making sure all the decorations that were to be used were electrically sound.
“To some people it might seem like the lights just appear all of a sudden but there is a huge amount of work which takes place over several weeks in the early hours before the city centre and streets become busy.”
Councillor Dave Trimble, Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Culture at Nottingham City Council, said: “As usual, our partners SSE and TVL have done an excellent job in lighting up the city over the festive period.
“This year, in particular, they had to face some logistical problems. They had to work alongside existing works in some areas as the Council continues to invest in the city, and there was also the late addition of a street as we continue to support small businesses by creating a festive shopping environment. Their accommodation of these challenges has been greatly appreciated.”