A protest group is offering prizes to anyone who throws pies at environment and development ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) industrialised countries who are due to attend the meeting on Thursday in the village of Breadsall outside the city.

Dissent, a group that opposes the G8, has called on followers to flock to the meeting hosted by British Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett.

"Bring costumes, music, whistles, etc. and join us!" the group said in a leaflet published on its website.

"Whilst they talk of relieving poverty in the global south, they uphold a financial system that creates global famine, military repression and social and environmental breakdown," Dissent said, offering a night at a bed-and-breakfast to anyone who hits a minister with a pie.

A spokeswoman for Derby City Council told AFP: "Intelligence from the police suggests that there could be mass marches or bike rides in the city. This would cause immense disruption in the city centre and the roads outside, and it is for these reasons (the city requested the ban)."

Under the order from the Home Office, all public processions in the Derby city area from noon (1200 GMT) on Tuesday until midday Saturday are forbidden, according to the spokeswoman.

Up to 3,000 people will be allowed in the market square, but the demonstrators will not be allowed to move elsewhere, she said.

A main summit of world leaders from the G8 (the United States, Canada, Britain, Japan, Russia, Germany, France and Italy) will be held in Scotland in July.

Britain holds the rotating G8 presidency this year.

All rights reserved. copyright 2018 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.