by Caroline RadfordYORK'S smallest pub planned to give regulars a huge celebration to mark its 200th birthday - until the council decided to rain on its parade.

Eileen Worrall, landlady of the Blue Bell, says she contacted the police and the City of York Council's highways department to get their blessing before she sent out 180 invitations to her Fossgate charity street party.

She says she was told it would be a straightforward matter and that application forms would be posted to her.

On the strength of these assurances she made her party plans for August 3 and sent the forms in - but has just been told the road cannot be closed after all.

"I could've cried when I got the call telling me we couldn't have the road closed," said Eileen.

"We'd done so much - there were going to be musicians and street entertainers as well as all our regular customers - and we'd hoped to make a lot of money for charity. But the council says it doesn't know who gave me the go-ahead originally and so now it looks as though I'm going to have put big adverts out calling the whole thing off."

A council spokeswoman said it had received the application for the road closure on July 6 and the highway regulation department considered it the following day and consulted the police, who agreed it did not merit approval.

A representative from the highways department then telephoned Mrs Worrall the next day to inform her of the decision and explain the reasons behind it.

Peter Evely, head of highway regulation, said: "While we congratulate the Blue Bell on reaching its 200th birthday, and wish it well for the future, closing the road to allow the celebrations to take place is not something that we felt was acceptable.

"The significant inconvenience that this would have caused to pedestrians and other road users could not be justified for this purpose."

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