YORK traders were celebrating their busiest weekend of the year as Christmas shoppers crowded the streets of the city.

The launch of the St Nicholas Fair on Thursday helped draw the crowds that day for late-night shopping and the numbers increased over the weekend.

Brian Littlejohn, store manager of Marks & Spencer in Pavement, said: "It was absolutely fantastic, we are over the moon.

"It was better than this time last year and it was by far the biggest two days of the year. In fact we were over the moon from Thursday night, as late-night shopping was fantastic.

"The weather was awful on Saturday, but the people were already around so it just forced them indoors." Gillian Cruddas, chief executive of York Tourism Bureau, said that market stall holders in Parliament Street and Newgate Market reported their "best ever" weekend.

She said: "They have had an excellent weekend, the market stallholders have been happy and they are saying it's been their best ever.

"The bad weather on Saturday didn't appear to put anybody off, which is surprising. Accommodation-wise we were absolutely full and struggling to find rooms for people on Saturday night."

Motorists were faced with parking problems yesterday after the city's variable message signs (VMS), which display information about the number of spaces in the city's car parks, froze due to a communication problem.

Peter Evely, City of York Council's head of networking, said maintenance on the council's IT system caused the signs shut-down just after 2pm yesterday. He said a warning of the work had gone round some weeks ago, but the problems took the VMS team by surprise.

The signs were working again at 9am today.

Mr Evely said: "It's inevitable that the maintenance will be done on a Sunday, it's just unfortunate that it was this weekend. We are going to have to try to find a way of keeping these things independent of our system."

Updated: 10:38 Monday, December 01, 2003