Birmingham Cathedral has re-opened this morning after taking the unprecedented decision to shut yesterday in response to the national terror threat level being raised to 'critical' following the Manchester attack.

The acting Dean of the Cathedral, Canon Nigel Hand, said that the decision to shut was taken in order to put increased security arrangements in place.

'The closure of the Cathedral today afforded us the time to make the necessary decisions and arrangements to ensure that we will open the Cathedral tomorrow, with increased security presence in place,' Hand said.

Some services took place publicly in Cathedral Square yesterday while the building was closed.

Hand told Premier that the Cathedral already had a policy in place detailing what to do if the threat level was raised to critical as it was back in 2007 'put together with advice from counter-terrorism'.

He added: '[The policy states] that we should shut and then reassess, which is exactly what we are going to do...The decision up to now has been with a heavy heart, I don't think it's anything that most of us want to do but if you have a policy you need to adhere to that policy.'

Hand said that people were gathering outside the church to 'pray, to light candles, to meet together, to be still, to think'.

The Dean insisted that there was no intelligence that the cathedral could be a target.