Despite the wet weather shoppers packed into the city centre for the festive fun with two live reindeer at Chichester Cathedral, where youngsters could have their picture taken with Santa's faithful friends.

A fabulous Christmas parade burst into the city centre led by Snow Queen Hayley Woodward.

Her carriage was pulled by two horses accompanied by rollerskating fairies, dancing elves and Christmas puddings.

Local businesses also got in on the act and joined the parade with their own festive presentations, while artificial snow was sprayed onto shoppers who lined North and East Street to watch the parade in a magical atmosphere.

The day was then rounded off with the Christmas lights being switched on and carol singing.

The annual Christmas and continental market also came to the city on Sunday with 70 stalls helping to round off the seasonal-themed weekend.

Meanwhile, an investigation is under way this week into the problems which have hit the city centre's new lights.

Hundreds of lights failed and were replaced during testing before Saturday's switch-on ceremony.

The extensive display immediately brought the Christmas atmosphere to the city's main streets, although parts of it had small numbers of bulbs which were not working.

Around 4,000 new low energy environmentally-friendly polycarbon bulbs – each about as big and heavy as a ping pong ball – were purchased this year by the city council, at a cost of around £9,000.

City council property manager Guy Clifford said that following the successful switch-on, the situation was now being monitored, particularly with regard to the disappointingly higher-than- expected failure rate.

"The suppliers have been made aware of the problem and the reasons for the failures are currently being investigated," Mr Clifford added.

"Due to the continental market in the streets, any further remedial work on rectifying faults cannot be undertaken before Thursday of this week."

A meeting of Chichester City Council are taking place tonight (Wednesday, December 3) when the festive light problems were expected to come under discussion.


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