Santa has made an urgent plea for a place to hold his grotto or he will have to disappoint hundreds of children hoping to meet him at Christmas.

In previous years Santa has set up his grotto in one of the empty shops in the Grosvenor Centre.

He and Mrs Claus meet children and give them presents, while raising money for local causes. Last year around 1,500 children visited the grotto and £800 was raised for East Cheshire Hospice.

But this year all the units in the Grosvenor Centre have shops in, with any vacant ones being taken up by temporary Christmas shops. While this is good news for the local economy and Christmas shoppers, it means that Santa has nowhere to make into a grotto.

Santa said: “In the past the wonderful Grosvenor Centre team have had an available unit and created a marvellous grotto for the children to visit me. This year, and they are so sorry, but all available units have been let and others on Chestergate and Mill Street are not available. I’m visiting the Charities Bazaar on Saturday at St Michael’s Church but this won’t give me long enough to see all the children. I desperately need a self contained unit, secure and with facilities in the town centre. The reindeer have mastered landing on the multi-storey car park roof. It has to be on the ground floor with easy access for pushchairs. I don’t want to disappoint the children of Macclesfield and hope someone can help.”

This year Samantha Hatton, who has run the grotto in previous years, has teamed up with Jayne Lewis, fundraising chairman at the Rotary Club of Macclesfield Castle and others members from the club to organise the grotto for Santa and Mrs Claus, otherwise known as Tony Keeley and his partner Carole Murphy. They have been searching high and low for a venue.

Michael Jones, of PR Jones the Jewellers, is ready to take the grotto out of storage for another year, Sam and Jayne have volunteers waiting to build it and helpers are ready to wrap presents.

Steve Smith, community services chairman for Rotary, said: “We need to start building the grotto very soon and time is running out.”

This year’s charities will be The Rotary Club of Macclesfield Castle, East Cheshire Hospice and Park Lane School.

The grotto will need to open every weekend in December, starting on December 3.

Contact Steve Smith on 07955 001950.