Snow forces council to cancel Lincoln Christmas market

Lincoln's Christmas market has been cancelled for the first time in 28 years due to severe weather conditions.

Rob Bradley from City of Lincoln Council said the "sad decision" had been taken on advice from emergency service teams.

Lincolnshire has experienced heavy snow falls all week and more snow is forecast for the weekend.

The market attracts about 150,000 visitors and contributes millions of pounds to the city's economy.

'Atrocious conditions'

Mr Bradley said: "It is with extreme regret that we have taken the decision to cancel Lincoln Christmas market this year.

"It has taken extreme weather conditions to do this, the first time it's happened in the history of the market.

"Safety is our absolute priority. Police advice is for people not to travel at all unless it is absolutely necessary so we don't want to encourage visitors and stallholders to come along and risk getting stuck on the roads or worse."

The market was due to run from Thursday 2 December until Sunday 5 December.

Ch Insp Kieron English from Lincolnshire Police added: "Our overriding concern is public safety and due to the atrocious conditions over the last couple of days and potentially over the next couple of days, we can't guarantee that safety."