A festive worker had to be rescued by firefighters after he got stranded on top of a cherry picker while putting up Christmas lights.

Fire crews were called to the incident in Weymouth town just before 5am today.

A spokesman for Weymouth Fire Station said: "Wholetime firefighters riding the Tech Rescue appliances and on-call firefighters were called to a broken down cherry picker in the town centre.

"Using a 9.5m ladder, the worker was walked down to safety by a member of the crew."

Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service said: "The very chilly man was putting up Christmas lights when the cherry picker failed. He has now been rescued and is hopefully somewhere enjoying a warm drink!"

Weymouth Town Council confirmed that the man was working for Turrell Ltd, who have been contracted by the council to put up Christmas lighting through the town in readiness for the Christmas 'switch-on' scheduled for Saturday, November 30.

A council spokesperson said: "The access platform was unable to return to the ground level due to a technical fault. For safety reasons, the Fire Brigade were then contacted and the operative was safely transferred out of the access platform. An engineer is now on site examining the cherry picker."