Leicester scraps Diwali lights switch-on event over costs

LEICESTER's iconic Diwali celebrations are set for a major change this year, as the city council announced the cancellation of the traditional lights switch-on event.

Citing soaring costs, officials on Friday (23) decided to merge the customary two-part festivities into a single celebration on Diwali Day on 31 October.

This move marks a significant shift for one of the UK's largest Diwali events outside India, as Leicester grapples with budget constraints and rising expenses for public gatherings.

“We’re really proud of our Diwali celebrations in Leicester, and we want Diwali to continue to thrive as part of our annual events calendar. However, the rising cost of providing activities on two separate days is now entirely unsustainable," Vi Dempster, the council's assistant city mayor for culture, told the BBC.

"We are facing unprecedented pressures on our budgets, and the only way we could have continued with two events is to find other ways of securing the substantial funding needed.

"Unfortunately, that’s not happened."

Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby has previously said budget pressures and a need to make savings have led to questions over the money being poured into events in the city.

Councillor Manjula Sood, assistant city mayor responsible for community cohesion, said, “Looking forwards we want to involve more people, especially young people and volunteers – who give so much time every year – in the development of our Diwali Day programme.

“We also want to work closely with the wealth of South Asian arts organisations and businesses we have in Leicester to help us to grow and find other sources of funding for this important celebration.”

The city usually has two big events: a lights switch-on along Belgrave Road's Golden Mile and a fireworks display on Diwali Day. Now, these will be combined into one event on Diwali say itself.

The council says running two events has become too expensive. In 2018, it cost £189,000, but last year it nearly reached £250,000. This big jump in price is due to things like managing traffic, security, and setting everything up.

Even though there won't be a separate switch-on event, the Golden Mile will still be lit up with 6,000 lights during the Diwali period. The council expects thousands of people will still come to join in the celebration.

The main Diwali Day event will have activities and entertainment on Belgrave Road and Cossington Street. The council will share more details about this soon.

According to reports, the council talked to local groups like the Leicester Hindu Festival Council and the Belgrave Business Association before making this decision. They hope to get more people, especially young people and volunteers, involved in planning future Diwali celebrations.

The future of the hugely popular celebrations, which attract thousands of people to Belgrave each year, has been up in the air since last September.

The festival’s future was also used as a political scoring point in the run up to the general election, with former Leicester East MP and 2024 candidate Keith Vaz accusing Sir Peter of “cutting off funding” for Diwali events.

In response, Sir Peter told the LDRS that no decision had been made at that point, and that he was still working with local businesses and potential sponsors to drum up the cash needed for the complete raft of celebrations.

“I understand there is the reasonable expectation that it will be possible to have not just the lights – which will be there, there’s never been any question about that – but an event on one or other of the days, either the switch on event or the actual Diwali Day itself," Sir Peter told councillors on the local authority’s Overview Select Committee last month.

He added: “It’s my understanding that the various stakeholders are particularly keen to see an event take place on Diwali Day itself. So, if something has to be sacrificed it would be the switch-on event.”

At the same meeting, councillors heard that Leicester city council is still facing the prospect of bankruptcy at the end of this financial year, 2024/25.

The authority currently has around £90 million in reserves following unexpected savings in 2023/24. Some £61m of these are anticipated to be used to fill the gap between income and outgoings this year.

However, this will leave the authority with insufficient cash to meet costs next financial year which are predicted to be more than £90m.

(with inputs from Local Democracy Reporting Service)