- Lisburn and Castlereagh, the Northern Irish local authority, has spent £1.8 million on Christmas lights in the last five years, making them the biggest festive spenders of any council
- Manchester City Council is the English authority with the greatest Christmas lights budget, spending an average £273,647
- The energy usage of Stockport’s Christmas lights could power the average home for over 9 years
- Experts at Confused.com Energy give advice on cutting your energy bill despite the added lights and heating that comes with the festive season.
Councils across the UK are once again lighting up their high streets and landmarks for Christmas. But some residents might get to enjoy more elaborate light displays than others. However, brighter lights come with heavier spends – and Confused.com Energy can reveal some huge disparities in council spending across the country.
As Christmas draws closer, the experts at Confused.com Energy submitted Freedom of Information Requests to councils across the UK. They wanted to uncover the government councils that are spending the most on brightening the winter nights, and the energy consumed by doing so.
The Local Authorities Spending the Most on Christmas Lights
| Rank | Local Authority | Average Christmas lights spend a year (£) |
| 1 | Lisburn and Castlereagh | £357,534 |
| 2 | Manchester | £273,647 |
| 3 | Wakefield | £190,773 |
| 4 | Renfrewshire | £181,169 |
| 5 | Hillingdon | £173,866 |
| 6 | Coventry | £147,813 |
| 7 | Leeds | £135,170 |
| 8 | Edinburgh | £134,039 |
| 9 | Antrim and Newtownabbey | £133,286 |
| 10 | Newcastle | £108,168 |
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[1].
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[2].
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!).
While your home is unlikely to be using quite that much power, Confused.com Energy have given their advice to help you save on your energy bills, even before putting your own Christmas lights up:
“Keeping lights on makes up about 11% of the average UK energy bill. So while it may be obvious, turning them off when they’re not necessary can help you save money in the long term3. That’s even more true during winter, when you’re likely to have lights on more often, and more up to brighten your home for Christmas.
“However, the largest contributor to your energy usage is almost definitely your boiler. Using your heating and hot water makes up about half your bill, so minimising these will drastically cut your spend. Consider taking baths over showers, and try to keep them under five minutes long. If you want to warm your home up for guests over Christmas, consider leaving the boiler at a lower temperature to save money. Or you could put it on a timer to avoid overspending.”
