North West District Council says the failing strength of its lamp columns means Coalville is running out of space to put up Christmas lights.

This year's Christmas lights programme is to feature 22 pole mounted decorations on lamp columns.

But Paul Wheatley, Head of Property and Regeneration at the district council, spoke to councillors at Tuesday's Coalville Special Expenses Working Party meeting.

He explained that some of the columns have failed stress tests - three of them in this case.

Mr Wheatley said that, if this continues to happen, then future years will see the town with some Christmas lights that will not be able to be displayed.

But it was made clear that the issue was one for Leicestershire County Council which maintains the columns.

Mr Wheatley said: "The important thing is, for future consideration, in respect of street light columns for lights, we have to have stress testing.

"It usually happens in September, but we're doing it early this time, and it was good we did.

"Because we found more street light columns failed, the stress tests, we have enough this year, but only just.

"Eventually we will end up with insufficient columns for the displaying of lights in the near future - or we'll have big gaps in the decorations.

"There's no rhyme or reason to it.

"Going forward, assuming the County council don't embark on a replacement of light columns, we'll be in a situation where we can't hang Christmas lights from columns.

"It's slightly depressing, but we have to think about that.

"There's point in burying our heads in sand.

"We have enough columns now, but in 2024-25, we'll have to carry out further tests, if more fail, we would be in a position where we have lights we can't put up."

Mr Wheatley added: "They pass a current up the column which tells you how much of the thickness of the metal is level, they corrode from the inside out. Each light fitting has its own load. The worst case scenario, is that they'd buckle and collapse. That's equally not good for pedestrians walking nearby. They've probably been up since the 1990s."

Cllr John Legrys responded: "We have the stress test as a County Council requirement. Mr Wheatley has rightly said we need a contingency plan, they're not going to last forever.

"We have to tell people why we can't put lights up on a column, it's because metaphorically speaking, it'll fall over."

The meeting confirmed Christmas in Coalville this year will be held in November 25 - with the Christmas decorations on display until January 4.

But Mr Wheatley added: "We won't be using real reindeer, from an animal welfare perspective."