City's greenest Christmas tree unveiled
Liverpool will be unveiling its greenest ever Christmas tree to celebrate the city’s Year of Environment.
The 61-foot tall Sitka Spruce will take centre stage in the city’s main shopping thoroughfare - Church Street – and will be adorned with a kilometres worth of environmentally-friendly lights.
On Tuesday 17 November, council leader Warren Bradley will be helping decorate the tree - which is now sourced from the Kielder forest in Northumberland instead of Scandinavia, to reduce its carbon footprint.
In all, a record-breaking 9,000 energy efficient Light Emitting Diodes and 298 baubles will hang from it.
It will be lit from this Thursday, 19 November, when 139,500 individual lights involving 4km of cabling across the city centre will also sparkle into life, dazzling the hundreds of thousands of festive visitors coming to the city.
This year for the first time, the lights will extend from the shopping district all the way up to the Cultural Quarter around William Brown Street, and will also complement the festive display in Liverpool One.
New light features for 2009 include designs celebrating the Go Penguins Winter Trail, the 2010 Shanghai EXPO at which Liverpool is the only UK city to have its own pavilion, the City Central Business Improvement District and Bold Street Traders.
Because of the energy efficient bulbs being used, the lights are 44 percent cheaper to run than the system the city used in 2007.
Councillor Bradley said: “Over the last year we’ve seen a massive increase in the number of people visiting Liverpool, and we want to put on a spectacular festive light show to entertain shoppers.
“The run-up to Christmas is the most important time of year for the city’s traders, and during these tough economic times we are determined to do as much as possible to entice people from across the region to come and spend their money in Liverpool.
“As this is Liverpool’s Year of the Environment, we have paid particular attention to making sure that we use as little energy as possible, minimising our carbon emissions and the impact on the planet.”
