A TOP business figure has threatened to chain herself to railings if a Suffolk council sells off its Christmas lights.Although the Christmas lights will be twinkling this year, Bury St Edmunds Town Council has given interested parties until the end of February to come forward and take them off its hands.

A TOP business figure has threatened to chain herself to railings if a Suffolk council sells off its Christmas lights.

Although the Christmas lights will be twinkling this year, Bury St Edmunds Town Council has given interested parties until the end of February to come forward and take them off its hands.

If nobody comes forward the lights will be sold.

Chrissy Harrod, president of Bury St Edmunds Chamber of Commerce said she would be “absolutely appalled” if the council gave the lights away or sold them to the highest bidder.

She said: “I am not being flippant. It is public money which has paid for them and it would be an irresponsible use of public money to sell them off for peanuts or give them away.

Mrs Harrod called on the council to seek other organisations, including St Edmundsbury Borough Council and the chamber of commerce, which might be able to work together to lay on the lights in future years.

Town council leader Roy Bebbington said the council simply could not afford to keep running or looking after the lights. He said the second lights had been valued by a number of firms at between about £10,000 and £20,000 but he feared the three-year-old set would fetch considerably less than that.

As a result, he said, it could end up being cheaper to give them away than pay the £5,000 a year storage costs.