Cheshire West and Chester Council spent £25,000 wrapping trees and lampposts with polyester

Aug 11 2011 by Rachel Flint, Chester Chronicle

WRAPPING Chester’s trees and lampposts with colourful stripy polyester cost £25,000, but brought a ‘festival feel’ to the city, a local authority has revealed.

For the past two months trees lining the walkways across the city centre have been wrapped in meters of brightly striped material in a bid to make Chester a more ‘fun and exciting’ place to work, live, and visit.

Cheshire West and Chester Council has revealed that the colourful material decorations, used to entice visitors to the city centre, cost the authority £25,000.

As part of the Chester Alive With Colour campaign the trees and lampposts were decorated during the night by an outside contractor who spent nine hours brightening up the city in June.

And since the material has been up council staff have stopped it unravelling by tidying up the fireproof wrappings during their lunch breaks, and on their way to meetings.

Executive Member for Culture and Recreation, Cllr Stuart Parker, said the summer cultural campaign had made a considerable impact on the city’s economy, with 4.56% more people staying in Chester hotels than June last year.

“Effective marketing of Chester and its events is absolutely vital to attracting as many people as possible into the city – and also creating the right festival atmosphere once they are here,” said Cllr Parker.

“The success of this year’s events has been widely applauded by locals and visitors alike and we are hoping for even greater success next year, and in future years as part of our aspirations to become a world-class destination.”

Councillors are still considering whether to go ahead with the tree wrapping next year, but a statement on CWaC’s website says that the designs will be ‘adapted to reflect the seasons’, and that the trees and lampposts could be “an attractive and achievable solution to creating a sense of culture and celebration in the future”.