A CELEBRATION of Christmas in Sedgefield has raised more than £3,500 for good causes.

Funds raised at the Christmas Tree Festival, held this month in St Edmund’s Church, will be shared equally between the church and the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS).

The cash for the church will help repair damage to the roof of the south transept which was targeted in 2017 by lead thieves who caused £30,000 worth of damage.

Reader Michael King said: “The result reflects the magnificent efforts of a small group of volunteers who deserve our great thanks as well as the generosity of all our various supporters.”

He also praised the local businesses and voluntary organisations who sponsored and decorated the 47 displays and which he described as “a great example of the community spirit evident in Sedgefield”.

The free, six-day festival attracted visitors from across the North-East.

Organisers are now planning a formal presentation of cheques to the GNAAS and church representatives early in the new year.

ITV television personality Pam Royle, who opened the festival, had previously described this year’s Christmas Tree Festival as “a stunning success”.

Winners of the local voluntary organisations section were: first: Sedgefield Harriers with a much-admired display of the Twelve Days of Christmas which featured characters and birds created from wooden clothes-pegs. Joint second were ‘Escape’ and Sedgefield Women’s Institute, with St Edmund’s Choir, Sedgefield Squash Club and Sedgefield Flower Club equal third.

In the business community section, ‘Peridot’ speciality gift and interiors shop in Sedgefield took first prize with an exquisite, all-white and silver display depicting ‘In the bleak mid-Winter’. Joint second were ‘From Loft to Loved’ and Sainsbury’s Sedgefield store and in third place were Clifton Lodge Vets and ‘Betty’s Boudoir’.

Judges added an extra award for the Number Four Teashop with its dramatic interpretation of ‘We Three Kings’.