A message from Cllr Kevin Guy, Leader of Bath & North East Somerset CouncilLast night saw the annual residents’ preview of Bath Christmas Market and I had the real pleasure of meeting stall holders, including Alex Peters, who runs the Bath Sausage Company (pictured) setting up ready for what I am sure will be an extremely busy 18 days ahead. Our Christmas Market team has been working hard under challenging weather conditions to bring more than 230 traders and community groups together to create our world-renowned event which attracts thousands of visitors to enjoy our wonderful city at Christmas. This year the market has made the top twelve Best European Christmas Markets by travel destination website European Best Destinations. This is in addition to being named as being among eight of the UK’s best Christmas markets by Which? magazine, whose readers also voted Bath their favourite medium sized city. The city is thriving and the increased footfall which the market brings, including overnight stays, benefits our many shops, cafes, pubs, restaurants and hotels. However more people in the city does put pressure on our highways network so we are advising visitors to use our excellent park and ride services, which will be running more frequently during the market period, or use other forms of public transport. Some residents may notice a reduction in the overhead Christmas lighting in Bath. We have worked with Bath Business Improvement District and town councils to keep the lights sparkling in most locations, but like many councils we have had to make incredibly large savings, to compensate for the increased demand in Social Care. However, we will continue to work with local businesses to enhance festive lighting next year. Scotland has given local authorities the powers to introduce a tourist tax and Wales is considering the same. I will be personally lobbying government with key partners to ensure we have the power to do this, which unfortunately due to central government legislation English councils currently do not have. On Monday we saw the start of the UN16 Days of Activism to end Violence Against Women and Girls. The council is committed to tackling this issue and play its part in building a safe and supportive community for everyone. We have joined with the police and other local organisations to create safer spaces across Bath and North East Somerset and it was good to see so many people turn out for the twilight city walk, organised by the council, to launch the awareness campaign locally. We are seeing an increase in scam WhatsApp and online message for winter fuel payments and are warning people not to get caught out. It is despicable that people are targeting those who need this support. Please remember if you are B&NES resident and in financial crisis or have received a letter from us please use our official website to apply for support. At the start of this message I referred to the challenging weather conditions our market teams faced over the weekend thanks to Storm Bert. While we were more fortunate than other parts of the country, the floods nevertheless had an impact in our area. Our highways and trees teams worked around the clock dealing with more than 70 flood and storm related incidents – thank you to all those who were involved in keeping our communities safe. Have a good weekend. | 
