IT may only be September but it is never too early to start planning for Christmas and Holsworthy Town Council is setting the ball in motion with plans for a more cohesive event this year.

In previous years Holsworthy has held a late night Christmas shopping event and a ‘lights switch on’ event on two separate days.

This year, the town council is looking into the possibility of combining the two with other planned activities in order to create a more cohesive and inviting event — but one councillor at a meeting of the town council on September 7 raised issues over funding.

An application would have to be made to ‘TAP fund’ in order to gain enough money to support the setting up of such an event.

Mayor Jon Hutchings voiced his enthusiasm over the town holding a larger, one-day event and proposed that they combine it with the ‘Santa Run’ being held this year for the first time in Holsworthy by Children’s Hospice South West (CHSW).

An application for £2,500 would be made to TAP to be put with an additional sum available to the council of £1,000 from both the council’s budget and events budget.

Most of the councillors were in agreement with this idea and the town clerk, Vanessa Saunders, who is the council’s responsible financial officer, said: “Hopefully, having it as one whole event should make it more cohesive.”

Cllr Joanne Heaven added: “Weather permitting of course!”

However, raising his concern over how the public may feel about all the funding being put towards one event, Cllr Lyndon Piper, who is involved with the local youth club, said: “I think we would come under scrutiny if we put one TAP fund application in for just one project or event.

“I can think of about 30 projects in and around Holsworthy that would benefit from some funding, I just don’t want people to think we are spending the money without really looking into it.”

Cllr Colin Punter said: “I personally think people would be more appreciative of one large event instead of two or three little ones but I think we should just try and see how it goes, that is all we can do.”

In response, mayor Jon Hutchings said: “I want to see us putting all our efforts in to one big event. A lot of work goes into each TAP fund application so I think it makes more sense to get a large sum all in one go instead of making lots of smaller applications.

“We don’t have to use all the money on the Christmas event and any left over can be put towards something else.

“We have already asked for people to put forward ideas for other projects but we haven’t had any back so I agree we should see how this event goes and work from there.”

A decision was made by councillors to look further into an application for the TAP funding for a Christmas event with seven councillors for and one against.