A town council has released money from its funds to help retailers and shoppers have a more festive Christmas season.

At its full council meeting on Wednesday, Oakham Town Council decided to allocate more than £2,700 of its funds to cover the cost of free parking in all of the town's car parks on December 14 and 21. The move comes after the county council decided it would fund the parking on December 7.

The town council has also decided to spend £1,500 on decorating empty shops along High Street so that they look more cheerful in the run up to Christmas.

The investment follows a meeting between the town council, county council and shopkeepers last month to discuss ways they could work together to rejuvenate the town centre.

The full council meeting took place on Wednesday 13 November (LDRS).

At the meeting the town council decided to instruct a surveyor to carry out a condition survey on Oakham's tennis club. The club wrote to the authority asking it to replace the existing prefab, but councillors agreed there would be no sudden decisions and would 'establish the issues and go from there'.

Coun Sally-Anne Wadsworth said : "If we do decide we are going to refurbish the tennis club, I think we need to consider the rent as well. If they want us to do all these upgrades I think the rent should reflect that." Currently the club pays around £1,000 a year in rent.

Councillors also discussed a recent bank fraud attempt, which the council successfully prevented. The authority decided to move banks.

And a decision was made to remove some of the dog poo bins from Royce playing field off Princess Avenue and replace them with one new bin. Councillors said the current bins were in a poor state.