Love them or hate them, the decorations lining main streets have come to signal the start of the festive season, but peninsula chambers of commerce have been told to pack away their decorations for another year.

Mornington chamber president Elisabeth Woolcock said contractors were putting up Christmas decorations in Main Street in early December when they were ordered off their ladders by staff of electricity provider Alinta.

Ms Woolcock said the chamber was told it needed a licence from Alinta. It quickly became a bureaucratic nightmare - which poles are owned by Alinta and which belong to Mornington Peninsula Shire? If the shire owns the pole, but Alinta manages the pole, who gets to decide how it can be used and by whom?

Alinta then stipulated each chamber would need to provide public liability insurance worth up to $20million.

And contractors erecting the decorations would need to be suitably qualified, which sounds reasonable, except that the only course was run at a TAFE in Gippsland. Finally, Alinta announced it would charge 'rent' for the use of each pole.

"It got to the stage where it was just too late and too hard," Ms Woolcock said. The Mornington chamber would begin planning its 2009 Christmas decorations in February.

The shire's business liaison officer Stuart Williams said the Municipal Association of Victoria had been in negotiations with Alinta over decorations for about 18 months but no agreement had been reached.

It was a similar story in Rosebud, where Christmas banners have been erected only on poles owned by the shire, and in Hastings, where the chamber of commerce decided to bypass the decorations entirely this year.

Mornington will not be without Christmas cheer - tinsel or no tinsel, the chamber will go ahead with its Christmas parade on Sunday. It starts at the corner of Cromwell and Main streets at 6pm, when Santa arrives.

Santa will travel by rickshaw along Main Street to the rousing beat of the police band. At Mornington Park, Santa will be available for photos with youngsters. A carols by candlelight event, sponsored by the Grand Hotel, will start at 8pm and the renowned Australian Welsh Male Choir will take to the stage at 8.30.