The Coca-Cola Truck is coming to Liverpool, but this UoL Professor wants to BAN it from the city

Is there anything quite as festive as freezing your bollocks off outside Liverpool ONE, taking a selfie under the magical glow of the Coca-Cola Truck's 8772 fairy lights and then enjoying a free mini can of coke? Of course not, there's nothing students love more than Christmas, good lighting and free stuff.

This year, you can catch the Coca-Cola Truck at Liverpool ONE on Tuesday the 5th and Wednesday 6th of December. However, not everyone is feeling so festive. In fact, there have been calls to ban the truck from Liverpool.

As reported in The Liverpool Echo, a UoL Professor, Simon Capewell – from the University's Department of Public Health and Policy – agrees with calls from local politicians to ban the truck from the city.

"The Coke Christmas truck has no place in our society," claimed Professor Capewell, who believes that sugary drinks should be subject to greater advertising restrictions, like tobacco. Sugar, he also claims, is the biggest contributor to the obesity epidemic in the UK.

Calls for a coke truck ban have been met with negative reactions. One Liverpool politician even had to state that he is "not a Scrooge," in response to the backlash for proposing the ban. Coca-Cola themselves simply responded that Diet Coke and Coke Zero will also be available at the event.

So, it seems that the coke truck will still grace Liverpool city centre this December, but whether the event has lost it's sparkle is debatable. The truck has always been a shameless, capitalist plug for Coca-Cola, but can promoting a positive image for sugary drinks be justified, especially at a child-friendly event? Or, shall we just grab our free coke, kick-back and relax, and hope that people choose the Coke Zero option?