Local heroes to take centre stage at this year's Leyland Christmas lights switch-on

Organisers of the town’s Christmas lights are planning a fabulous festive extravaganza with the height of the coronavirus crisis hopefully behind us.

And the spotlight will fall on “local heroes” - not least the frontline health workers who have been putting their lives on the line to care for others.

Martin Carlin, of the lights organisers the Leyland Town Team, said he wants to give the town something to really look forward to and enjoy following the disappointment of having popular public events cancelled this year due to Covid-19.

The switch-on date has been set - November 28.

“We’re going to make sure that it’s a big spectacle that people can look forward to after all this,” Martin pledged.

And he revealed: “We want to make it bigger and better.

“I’ve already identified a celebrity who’ll do it and I’d like to think our frontline can do more for us this year than anything.

“We aim to make it a fantastic tribute to the frontline workers - I think, if anything we should look to that.

“We want to go on the line of local heroes.”

Martin said the idea of organising a ‘big party’ had already been discussed,

But the problem was with that was when could it take place with the coronavirus still raging.

“You can’t plan anything until you’re out of it,” said Martin..

“All you can do is look to your scheduled events.

“We’re going to try and keep everything we’ve done for this year and roll it out next year to give us a head start.

“This year the focus is on the lights switch on - celebrity, nurses doctors.

“We’re doing the right thing by making it local.”

Martin, chair of the Leyland Festival and the Town Team, has turned his attention to the winter months after the showcase summer Saturday became one of the latest leisure events to be cancelled amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

It had been due to take place on June 20.

The inaugural Leyland In The Park music festival – set to be staged 24 hours earlier – has also been scrapped by organisers South Ribble Borough Council.

The authority said that it had taken the “difficult decision” to pull the plug on performances by Tony Hadley, T’Pau, Doctor and the Medics and Pat Sharp, in light of government advice about delaying the spread of coronavirus.

It is feared that a peak in cases could come over the early summer.

All tickets for Leyland In The Park will be refunded. The process will depend on where they were purchased, but ticket-holders will be contacted directly.

He added that the summer schedule would be back in 2021, because that is “now what is expected for the town”.

“Obviously we were disappointed to have to cancel this year’s events, but we have to protect the public, so there was nothing else we could

do.

“We were so close to completing the preparations, but these events will happen again.”

The festival was due to feature the annual parade – a feature of the event for 130 years – along with a procession of vintage vehicles to celebrate the town’s motoring heritage.

The Factory to Festival Bike Ride was also set to be a key part of the event.

Organised by Leyland Trucks’ Helping Hand charity, it would have seen riders complete their choice of three cycling routes of either 30, 75 or 120 miles in length. Whatever course was chosen, each would have started at the Leyland Trucks factory and finished in Worden Park.