Counting the cost to councils to light up Christmas

Councils across the UK are once again lighting up their high streets and landmarks for Christmas, but brighter lights come with heavier spends – and Confused.com Energy can reveal some huge disparities in council spending across the country.

Using Freedom of Information Requests to councils across the UK, the analysis uncovered the councils that are spending the most on brightening the winter nights, and the energy consumed by doing so.

The Northern Irish local authority, Lisburn and Castlereagh, is by far the biggest spender on Christmas lights of any council. In total, the local council spent a huge £1.8 million on Christmas lights between 2020-2024 – an average of £357,534 per year. This is far more than double the spend of the Scottish capital Edinburgh (£134,039 per year on average). This translates to approximately 7,794kWh of energy per year: enough to power the average UK home for around 260 days.

Manchester has the country’s second greatest spend, costing the council an average £273,647. That’s 23% less than Lisburn and Castlereagh. Manchester, though, is still just one of two cities found to have spent more than £1 million on lights since 2020, at £1,368,237.

The city of Wakefield has the third highest spend on Christmas lights, Confused.com Energy found. Since 2020, Wakefield council has spent an average of £190,773 per year on Christmas lights. The council has also used a whopping 20,789kWh of energy each year. That’s about as much as an electric car uses after driving 73,000 miles.

The energy experts found that, of the local authorities analysed, there was an average spend of £49,564 on Christmas lights a year. The greatest energy usage was in Stockport, at 105,945kWh (enough to power the average house for about nine and a half years).