ORGANISERS of the Ilminster town centre Christmas decorations have played down suggestions that the fu-ture of the lights is in doubt because of a lack of cash and volunteers.

The Christmas lights switch-on, which coincides with a Victorian evening, is one of the big nights of the year in the town's social calendar and attracts more than 3,000 people.

But Deputy Mayor Cllr Margaret Excell last week told members of Ilminster Town Council the group needed more support and more funding to keep going.

"A lot of the committee are now having a bit of trouble clambering up and down the ladders to put the lights up," she said.

"They need more volunteers, younger volunteers. They are going to be in trouble financially as well after this year."

Cllr Excell said the group needed to re-pair and replace some of the lights damaged during bad weather leading up to last Christmas and the cost of some of the decorations was in the region of £600 -£800.

Town council clerk Stephen Fisher told councillors he was surprised the lights committee had not been in contact with him about making an insurance claim.

"They are insured through us," he said. "But I don't think the insurance company will be too impressed if they make a claim now six months later."

Mike Bonner, the chairman of Ilmin-ster Christmas Lights Committee, said that although they were solely responsible for the funding of the decorations, the town council was involved because of the insurance implications.

"A lot of the money we need to raise goes just on rent and maintaining the lights and decorations we've already got," he said.

"It is fair enough what Mr Fisher has said - but the reason why we haven't claimed is that I felt the insurance company would think that the decorations being damaged because of bad weather was a risk you take.

"If we claimed every time some of the lights got broken or damaged because of the weather, the premiums would keep going up.

"I also thought that we were really only insured if someone fell off a ladder putting the lights up or if the decorations fell onto somebody's head.

"It is right that we could be in some financial trouble next year, especially if we have bad weather again this time around, but the Ilminster lights will carry on - they are part of Ilminster."

Mr Bonner also said there was a pressing need for more younger and fitter volunteers to come forward.