A POPULAR Christmas event held every year in the Eden centre has been cancelled.

A new environmentally friendly event, The Eco Elves Tree-Cycle is replacing the Elf School this year. 

In this new event, children will be able to visit an environmentally friendly festive workshop where there will be a Christmas tree machine.

Participants can transform a magic bean into their very own miniature Christmas tree.

Children will then have the chance to get creative as they have fun making sustainable Christmas tree decorations using only recycled materials.

The announcement has been met with some disappointment from a member of the local community.

Sarah Ann Xoc said "it's a real shame" The Elf School has been replaced by the new event.

The Elf School was a popular event where children can graduate from Elf School where they can choose their elf name, help make presents, and learn how to walk like an elf at the shopping centre in High Wycombe.

A spokesman from the Eden Shopping Centre said: “After a lot of thought and consideration, we decided to introduce a brand new Christmas concept to shoppers this year, and we truly believe it will be more representative of the centre and the families who join us for Christmas.

"This decision was made by taking on board customer feedback from previous events and in line with our evolved brand.

"Striving for sustainable fun for the whole family, our ‘Eco Elves Tree-Cycle’ event will be our very first 100% sustainable event, which is something we as a centre are extremely proud of."

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The Eden Centre then went on to explain its recent environmentally friendly initiatives.

"As demonstrated by some of our other most recent events such as ‘Honey, It’s Half Term’ which celebrated ‘Word Bee Day’ in May, one of our key goals from events is to reinforce our commitment to promoting sustainability", they said.

"This event received a huge amount of positive feedback from those who took part in the bee trail, with many commenting how they had learnt about our apiary with 4 beehives on our environmentally friendly roof.

"September’s ‘Storytime Saturdays’ were also focussed on sustainability and nature, with each event taking families on an exciting expedition to see the world through the eyes of a bug, learn the importance of kindness to the environment and explore the Jungle of Eden. These brand new events drew nothing but praise from those who attended.

"We must continue to evolve, which does mean over time you will see a number of new campaigns and events from us. We have an several positive comments online on our announcement of the Eco Elves Tree-Cycle, and this is before tickets even go on sale, we’re certain families will love our new Christmas event just as much as we do.”

The event starts on Saturday,  November 25, and will run from 10am to 5pm every weekend in the run up to Christmas, plus daily from December 16 to 24.

Tickets must be pre-booked in advance at £3 per person.