Incredible aerial photos reveal 'Britain's most festive street' - after a couple ditched exchanging gifts this Christmas and poured their savings into 100,000 lights instead. Mike Manders and wife Recca started stringing lights up in Acland Street, Hull, two years ago in a bid to inject some light and joy into neighbours' lives.
What started off as a fairly low-key display with a few decorations has snowballed into a 100,000-light extravaganza complete with 8ft inflatable decorations, animatronic reindeer and a snow machine. The train onboard manager said that he's managed to rope in 11 neighbours to also festoon their houses in lights to transform the tiny corner of the East Riding of Yorkshire into a winter wonderland.
The 37-year-old dad-of-six, and 42-year-old personal care assistant Recca raise charity funds for Action For Children with the £5,000 display. In a bid to up the festive ante Mike admits he's already planning on expanding it - ploughing the cash saved from the pair not treating each other this Christmas into even more lights.
Incredible drone shots show how the colourful street lights up the otherwise dark surrounding areas. Mike said: "I'd love for us to be Britain's most festive street, that would be lovely. Next year we'd like a banner made that says 'Welcome to Christmas Street'.
"Recca and I haven't bought each other a Christmas present this year. We've said we'd rather buy more lights and decorations and make a bigger effort instead, we've got everything we need. We've spent £700 this year alone. In total we've spent a couple of thousand pounds, the whole street is about £5,000."
Despite soaring energy costs, Mike insists that the 40 plugs in their house powering the lights for five hours a day only costs 50p a day due to them being LEDs. Factoring in the inflatables, he estimates that it'll cost just £20 a month to power the lot.
Mike said: "We've got more than 40 plugs plugged in our house and I'd say for the five hours a day we have it on it's 50p a day maximum. We've got five inflatables in our garden and we've got the animatronic reindeer that are all lit up.
"We've been checking against our usual usage and it's going to be no more than £20 for the month.
"We get lots of people visiting us. It's nice to see people's reactions to the lights - the children's reactions are the best. We're already planning next year. We want people to just get happiness from it and some joy and help raise some funds for charity too."
