THE season of goodwill in Ledbury is months away, but already there's a row as to who should shoulder the burden of work for the Christmas Lights switch-on and where Santa's grotto should be located.

However, it's Ledbury traders who could end up saving the day.

Town centre traders were set to have a meeting this week to decide how they can become more involved with this year's grotto and switch on.

But at a recent stormy meeting of the Christmas lights committee, the chairman of the town's environment and leisure committee, Cllr Tony Bradford, walked out when it was suggested that the burden of arranging the switch-on this year should fall to the traders, and should not be the duty of the town council staff, unlike in previous years.

Cllr Bradford was also concerned over suggestions that the grotto should move from the town council offices to the Homend Mall, and he was concerned that he had not been notified about the proposed changes beforehand.

As a result, he stated that he would have nothing more to do with the town's Christmas Lights arrangements, a move which led to fellow town councillor, Martin Eager, accusing him afterwards of "throwing his toys out of the pram".

Cllr Bradford, also speaking after the meeting, said he attended the meeting "in good faith", but he added: "The way it was presented, it seemed as though it was all pre-arranged. That was my perception.

"I felt from the beginning I was not wanted.When I asked Cllr Eager, when did the staff decide not do Christmas lights Cllr Eager said, are you volunteering the staff for the job ?

"I said it would have been nice to have been notified by email that the staff will not help. At that point I left, and I will not have anything more to do with the Christmas Lights."

Cllr Eager is the owner of the Homend Shopping, but he stressed that the idea of moving the grotto to there came from the traders, not him, and that a Santa's grotto event could take place in the mall three or four times in the run up to Christmas, and not only on the Christmas Lights switch-on day, November 25.

Minutes from the meeting state: "Martin stated that due to the current staffing levels, there were doubts as to whether the switch-on could be put on in the same manner as previous recent years.

"He suggested that as Ledbury now has a strong Traders' Association, they take over the majority running of the event with the council continuing with installing and paying for the lights."

The minutes add: "Alison Thomas, Chairman of Ledbury Traders, presented many ideas to the meeting re making the event more trader involved and making more use of the market and utilising other venues in The Homend.

"There followed a heated exchange of views between Martin and Tony which resulted in Tony leaving the meeting."

It was unanimously agreed that this year offered "an exciting opportunity for more traders to be involved and that the event would cover shops in The Homend where they have been somewhat left out in previous years".

The plan, to be discussed further by the town's Christmas Lights working party, is for traders to "put together a switch on/late night shopping event and a Father Xmas Grotto, also fundraising events and to arrange pre switch-on publicity."