Edinburgh's Christmas Market at Princes Street and the Mound, is hugely popular with tourists and local residents alike. Picture: TSPL

Posting a video of huge queues on Waverley Bridge, Luke Skipper (@LJ_Skipper) wrote: “Insane overcrowding at the Edinburgh Christmas Market. Obvious security risk - with potentially really grim consequences.”

Pointing out the lack of security bollards he added that he couldn’t believe the council would allow it.

Another Twitter user replied to the post adding that they’d just spent at “least 30mins” trying to get out with “four kids and a buggy” before stating that the organisation around the event was “awful”.

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Last year, it was confirmed that armed police, large concrete barriers and stop and search checks would be employed at festive markets up and down the UK amid fears of Berlin-style copycat terror attacks.

At the time, Councillor Donald Wilson, Culture and Communities Convener at the City of Edinburgh Council, said: “Hogmanay is one of the busiest nights of the year in Edinburgh and our Christmas celebrations are some of the very best in the world.

“Appropriate measures have of course been put in place this winter, as they are every year, to ensure the security of our popular winter festival destinations.

“They are simply a public safety precaution in the current climate and to reassure the public that we are putting their safety first.”