‘Our city should be welcoming visitors from all over the UK’
CALLS FOR FESTIVE MARKET’S RETURN
CALLS are mounting for the Lincoln Christmas Market to return ahead of the first festive period without it.
The market would typically kick off on the first Thursday of December, and 2023 will be the first year without.
It was scrapped by the city council in February due to fears over safety and will be replaced by a variety of events throughout the year, though the decision has been controversial. Lincoln MP Karl McCartney has been staunchly opposed to the decision.
He said on Thursday, December 7: “From today until Sunday, our city should be welcoming people from all parts of the UK and further afield to our Christmas market.
“But instead, the Labour city council decided in secret to close it, permanently. Even though there are obviously clear benefits for local jobs, shopkeepers and charities, as well as giving us the chance to bring the whole Lincoln community together.”
He called the decision to close the “historic, world-famous” market short-sighted and said it would have a “huge and long-lasting impact”. Axing the market needs to be reversed, Mr McCartney said, and he added that the city is “being ridiculed nationally”.
He has launched a survey to raise support for bringing the beloved event back. At a recent meeting, City of Lincoln councillors turned down calls to bring the market back, saying that “no amount of money” could make uphill Lincoln safe enough.
Labour Council leader Ric Metcalfe acknowledged the market’s popularity and economic significance but expressed safety concerns. He said: “The increasing visitor numbers predicted for future years would have created an unsafe event, with potentially serious implicaations.
“We’d had many cases of adverse reacction around nd overcrowding, ng, and our repuputation was starting to sufuffer.” Mr Metcalfe also said aid the infrastrucructure required d to make the 2022 022 event safe was estimated at around £750,000 and would have ‘increased significantly’.
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TWO construction companies have been cleared of health and safety charges by a jury following an investigation into the death of a father-to-be who died when a dumper truck overturned.
An inquest into 23-year-old Harry Cheston’s death concluded that he died when the dumper truck he was driving on a Lincoln building site overturned on an embankment.
Harry, Nottinghamshire, was soon to become a dad for the first time and was working for subcontractors Derbyshire-based Melfort Construction on the Rudgard Lane student accommodation site off West Parade when he died on January 9, 2020.
Lindum Group Limited and
Melfort Construction Services Ltd each denied a health and safety charge and were found not guilty by a jury following a three week trial at Lincoln Crown Court.
Lindum Group Limited pleaded not guilty to: failing to discharge the duty to ensure construction work carried out without risks to Health and Safety imposed by Regulation 13 (1) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2016, contrary to Section 33 (1) (a) of the Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974.
Melfort Construction Services Ltd pleaded not guilty to: failing to discharge the duty to employees to provide and monitor a safe system of work imposed by Section (2) (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974, contrary to Section 33 (1) (a) of the act.
The trial judge thanked jurors for their careful consideration of the case following the not guilty verdicts.
Judge James House KC said: “Any case where a young man has lost his life is very serious and a complete tragedy.”
Between February 14 until February 16, 2022, an inquest into Mr Cheston’s death was held by a jury in the presence of assistant coroner Marianne Johnson over three days at the Myle Cross Centre in Lincoln.
The Record of Inquest said: “On January 9, 2020, on a building site at West Parade, Rudgard Lane, Harry Cheston was driving a dumper truck when it overturned on an embankment.
“He was crushed between the steering column and the seat. He died of his injuries.”