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WINTER WONDERLAND SETS THE SCENE AS ENNISKILLEN GOES FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH

With the dust settled and the new year in full swing the success of Enniskillen’s Winter Wonderland can be fully reflected upon. With over 150 volunteers making the event a roaring success we can look forward to it becoming something of a feature of Christmas in Enniskillen.

The hugely successful partnership with Cancer Connect NI saw 2350 tickets sold for visits to Santa Claus with proceeds going to Cancer Connect NI, a locally based charity helping those in our community affected by cancer.

And for those who bought those tickets they arrived at the Winter Wonderland at the Buttermarket in fabulous style on the Polar Express. The custom-made train was a magical sight as it toured Enniskillen, which always looks fabulous at Christmas, before dropping the excited children off to see Santa, who was waiting in his sparkling grotto at the Buttermarket.

The event received generous support from local business with Lochside Garages and Haldane and Fisher among those to throw their weight behind the event. Plans are already underway to make sure that Winter Wonderland Enniskillen is even bigger and better in 2019.

The festive period was a wonderful time in Enniskillen with businesses benefiting from £10,000 in Big Lottery Funding for a community Workshops to produce window displays. Anyone shopping in the town at Christmas will have seen the fabulous work that went into the displays and how they added that little bit of extra sparkle to proceedings.

The Enniskillen Gift Card was also a huge success during the festive period with £30,000 in festive sales alone. That is money that is now locked into the community and that will be spent in the businesses in our wonderful town.
Speaking on the Winter Wonderland and the Christmas period in general Enniskillen BID Manager, Noelle McAloon, was delighted with how everything went:“I just think the town looked so well and there was a tremendous atmosphere about. The Winter Wonderland was truly special, and it is great to see a local charity benefit from the generosity of local people, which it was also great to see the smiles on the children’s faces when they got to meet Santa Claus,” she said.

“We are also delighted with the sales of the Enniskillen Gift Card. It is so important that we shop local and support businesses within the town and every penny that is spent on the Gift Card will make its way to a local business. We are growing the Gift Card every year and we are very excited about what 2019 will bring,” Noelle stated. And speaking of 2019 it promises to be a very busy year for Enniskillen with £8m in investment coming to the town. SGN are laying extensive gasworks in the town that will make gas a viable option for not only homes but businesses as well while an improved electricity network will also be installed. And all this comes before the £5.2m Enniskillen Public Realm Scheme which will get underway over the summer. Exciting times for our county town.

“This is much needed investment and will really help to not only provide more choice to businesses in Enniskillen but also better services for them to avail of. The investment in our town is a good news story and while we know there will be some disruption as the work is going on the town will benefit greatly from this £8m in investment,” Noelle concluded.