Published: December 9, 2008
Live from Burnham-On-Sea... GMTV features street's Christmas lights

Burnham-On-Sea was in the national spotlight on Tuesday morning (December 9th) when breakfast TV station GMTV broadcast a live segment featuring a street's now-famous Christmas lights.

Millions of viewers watched GMTV reporter Richard Gaisford, pictured, interview Trinity Close residents Nick Gardener, Chris Woodberry and Roger Flower live on air at 6.15am and 7.25am.

Trinity Close has attracted national attention again this year after introducing environmentally-friendly Christmas lights, first featured by Burnham-On-Sea.com last week. A total of 90,000 light bulbs are lighting up the cul-de-sac at a cost of just £13 a week, thanks to the use of energy-saving bulbs.

The tradition was started 10 years ago by Nick and wife Hazel, with neighbours Chris Woodberry, and his late wife Christine, who died earlier this year.

Mr Gardner, an electrician, spends two full days fitting 15,000 lights to his house each November.

He said: "It all started about 10 years ago when the Woodberrys and us began putting lights up on the outside of our houses. There's probably 15,000 lights on our house and that's about the average. Thanks to energy-saving light bulbs it only costs me about £80 extra on top of my normal electricity bill for the whole six weeks."

The lights are being lit between 4pm and 10pm each day until January 6th. Thousands of pounds are expected to be raised for the charity Petal: The Christine Woodberry Memorial Trust in memory of Mrs Woodberry. The lights were featured in the Daily Mail this week and were also on GMTV in 2006 and 2004.

Chris Woodberry live on GMTV on Tuesday morning and (top of the page) Nick and Hazel Gardner with their son Harvey and GMTV's Richard Gaisford