Council slammed over sorry-looking sleigh and skinny Christmas tree
A SORRY-looking sleigh dumped next to a fake tree in a bleak shopping centre is the lowlight of a town’s dismal Christmas decorations.
It is one of the distinctly joyless displays put up by Walsall Council in the West Midlands town.
The Walsall FC-sponsored sleigh is next to an empty retail unit at Saddlers shopping centre.
Beside it is a fake Christmas tree dwarfed by the high-ceilinged space.
Labour councillor Matt Ward said: “This doesn’t exactly give you a reason to come to Walsall to do your Christmas shopping.”
Even the town’s main display — a 30ft Christmas tree with no baubles and just a single string of lights — has been branded shabby.
It cuts a sorry figure enclosed within metal fencing — and next to a bollard with fly-tipped rubbish.
Mr Ward said: “It looks like it’s been dragged around the town and the lights just thrown on.”
Former local authority worker Michael Harper, 69, said he was proud of displays in years gone by but added: “This one is terrible.”
Meanwhile, in nearby Willenhall, a skinny Christmas tree also upset residents.
Darren Rowe, 25, said: “It’s a bit of joke. It hardly puts you in the festive spirit.”
Walsall Council defended the Willenhall tree, saying this year it was using planted firs which are more sustainable than cut trees.