Make Welling Sparkle Again for Christmas 2026

Aim

To bring the sparkle to Welling for 2026 with Christmas lights and the Welling Sparkle Christmas market.

Since 2019, we have created the Welling Sparkle, by raising money to make Welling look festive and also by bringing the Christmas market to the  Westwood Lane car park.

We have a short video to show you Christmas 2025 in Welling.

For 2026, we would like to get a good number of Christmas lights in Welling Town Centre, spreading out from Welling Corner on Bellegrove Road, Upper Wickham Lane and Welling High Street.

Discover Welling loves to support the local community, so we are also going to 'pay it forward' again this year by donating £5 for a present towards a good cause for every lamp post that we light up. 

Each year, Bexley Council give each town centre a grant to use towards promoting the town centre, which this year is £3,049.  The Welling Town Business Associates group have granted us £1,549 of this money for our Christmas community activities, which includes the Sparkle Christmas market and Christmas lights.  

Local businesses and groups are getting involved with sponsorship but we would also like to invite our community to participate through this crowdfunding campaign. Your pledges, large or small, will make a difference to what we can organise for the Welling community and enable us to bring some sparkle to Welling again this year. 

We are offering the following Sponsorship options again this year:

Donations of £50 or more

For a donation of £50 or more, your business name and logo will be added to our thank you image, which will be shared across our social media platforms throughout the Crowdfunder campaign and right up until New Year.  The image will also be made into large stickers that will be put on all of the lamp posts in the town centre apart from the ones that have been sponsored by a business.  We will also share this on our website on our Christmas page and it will remain on the website for people to look back on in future years.

Donations of £200 or more

For a donation of £200 or more, you will be able to sponsor a whole lamp post and business name and logo will be made into a large sticker to put on a lamp post of your choice out of the ones that we are able to light.  It will also be added to our thank you image, which will be shared across our social media platforms throughout the Crowdfunder campaign and right up until New Year.  We will also share this on our website on our Christmas page and it will remain on the website for people to look back on in future years.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!

FAQs

Who is organising the Christmas campaign?   

The community group Discover Welling is organising the campaign, supported by the local councillors.

Shouldn’t the council be providing Christmas lights?  

Local authorities across the country have the same problems with the need to make savings to preserve essential services. Whether or not we raise the money ourselves will not affect the council’s position, so we may as well try to provide the lights as they won’t happen otherwise. The council provides a grant of £2,966 to each town centre within the borough to support town centres and this year, the Welling Town Business Associates have decided that £1,500 of this will be used to fund our town centre Christmas Community activities.

Can anyone donate?

Absolutely! Please spread the word to all who may be interested, including people with Welling connections past and present.  You don’t have to live in Welling to contribute.

Can my donation be anonymous?

Yes this option is available.

Does Crowdfunder.co.uk charge any fees?

Yes, there are card transaction fees of 2.4% + 20p plus VAT.  There are no platform fees.  

Do I have to give online through the Crowdfunder?

No, you can either pay in through your own online banking, or go into your local bank to pay money in.  Details are available on request.

I can't afford to give much, is it worth it?

Absolutely, yes. If everyone in Welling gives something, however small, we can easily reach our target. It’s all the contributions added together that makes a decent total. We can’t do it with the support of just a few donors, however generous – reaching the target will require a large number of us all to do our bit.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 2nd November 2026 at 8:45pm