YORK’S Coppergate Centre is now a blaze of festive colour after dark each day after Christmas lights on two trees - real and artificial - were switched on.

BBC Radio York’s Adam Tomlinson and Anna Wallace were assisted at the switch-on ceremony on Friday evening by the cast of Sleeping Beauty, a Rowntree Players panto which takes to the stage at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre next month.

Centre manager Pippa Unwin said she was delighted to have not one but two new Christmas trees, including a real tree which had been decorated by The Boot Shop in Easingwold – ‘a great charity which supports people with learning disabilities.’

The celebrations started with a performance by the Appleton Roebuck Primary School choir, and shoppers also saw York’s Magic Ball Man, Steve Bullen, performing spectacular contact juggling with his crystal spheres.