Truro will be lit up with some fabulous festive Christmas lighting following the generous donation of nearly £15,000 from town crier Lionel Knight and his partner Carol Bane.

The Christmas lights switch-on takes place on the same night as the City of Lights Parade on Wednesday.

Lionel and Carol will be leading the lantern parade around the cobbles of Truro and they will switch on the Christmas Lights when the parade is half way around its route from approximately 7.30pm.

From Wednesday night visitors and residents will be able to appreciate angels lighting up and looking over Boscawen Street along with new harmonising twinkling lights in Princes Street.

The lighting in Calenick Street is also being replaced with a full set to brighten up the street.

Earlier this year Truro born and bred Lionel contributed £10,000 to refresh the lighting scheme in Boscawen Street, now named ‘Lionel’s Lights’ in his honour and Carol made an additional donation in the summer of nearly £5,000.

Thanks to the donation from the generous couple the lighting schemes in both Princes Street and Boscawen Street have been fully replaced for both residents and visitors to enjoy.

Lionel and Carol said: “We love Truro and are very proud of our city, and we both wanted to do something meaningful to help it grow and prosper. We are delighted that we’ve been able to help refresh the scheme for everyone visiting Truro over the festive period to enjoy.”

Every year the Christmas lights, which are installed and maintained by Truro Business Improvement District (BID), are refreshed and this is funded by the levy contribution to the BID from around 390 businesses within the BID area.

However, Truro BID’s budget has decreased by 20 per cent this year as the BID’s contributions corelate to premises business rates and many of these reduced in revaluations during 2017.

Alun Jones, Truro BID Manager said: “We’re thrilled by the incredibly generous personal donation to Truro’s Christmas lights by both Carol and Lionel. Thanks to their donations, Truro has some new lighting motifs this Christmas for the community and visitors to admire in our great little city for many years to come.”

Following the switch-on Truro’s lights will be on daily until early January 2019.