YORK'S first lady has pledged her support to the campaign to bring Christmas lights to the city amid fears that a £30,000 shortfall will spell a dim festive season.

Time is running out and York businesses and residents have been warned there could be a "blackout" unless they back the bid to raise funds for festive illuminations.

York Business Pride's Christmas lights committee has urgently appealed for support from the business community.

But chairman Adam Sinclair says they are far from reaching the £30,000 necessary to cover the testing, installation and maintenance of existing lights in time for this year's celebrations.

Even news that an extra 500,000 shoppers head for York over the festive period, spending more than £37 million, has failed to attract support.

The Lord Mayor of York, Coun Janet Looker, urged traders to get behind the campaign.

"I appreciate businesses may feel times aren't as flush as they have been perhaps. But if we don't keep York alive and exciting over Christmas then we will find ourselves struggling to keep that edge," she warned.

"One of my predecessors, Coun Derek Smallwood, was right at the forefront of a successful campaign to get the lights on to a better footing than they had been for many years.

"I must admit I hadn't thought about doing that as I hadn't realised things were quite so difficult. I would be very happy to help out if there's anything I can do," she promised.

Coun Smallwood made it his priority to rid York of its low-wattage festive affair and raised £20,000 for the cause during his term as Lord Mayor in 1998. The City of York Council matched the sum, helping to set higher standards for years to come.

This year, the council is paying for the storage costs as well as funding festive lights in certain historic and key locations.

The Lord Mayor said: "I was very disappointed to see that we seem to be going backwards. The lights are enormously important in making something special of York. If York doesn't have that, people will go elsewhere.

"It took a long time before we started to get York's Christmas lights going well and it certainly did look very dull.

"We do make a lot of special efforts over the Christmas period and the lights are a very important part of the St Nicholas Fair. If we can't have some decent lights it will look half-hearted."

Anyone keen to contribute to the Christmas lights fund should write to Ian Tempest, Economic Development Unit, City of York Council, 20 George Hudson Street, York, YO1 6WR.

Updated: 09:50 Thursday, September 16, 2004