THE HIGHCLIFFE Food and Arts Festival has been cancelled for the second year running due to growing uncertainty over the ongoing pandemic.

Volunteer directors of the popular community event, which was due to take place over the weekend of Saturday June 12 and Sunday June 13, 2021, have decided to cancel the event this year.

Committee members have been looking into the likely problems of running the food and arts festival in June 2021, and, having discussed them with the Highcliffe and Walkford Parish Council in a meeting on Wednesday January 27, the decision was made to postpone the event for the second year in a row.

Founder Mary Reader said: “My co-chair Terry Lester and I have been consulting with HFAF committee members and the Highcliffe and Walkford Parish Council to establish whether it is sensible - or even feasible - to go ahead this year, due to the many uncertainties.

“However, the problems emanating from the evolving Covid crisis have meant that we can never be sure that there will be no more lockdowns later in the year.

“Having lost a considerable amount of money last year due to non-reimbursable payments made to our contractor, to BCP itself, and to HMRC in respect of a tax bill following the setting up of our CIC, we feel as CIC directors that it would be irresponsible to risk losing even more money.”

Even before the latest problems associated with the new variant strain of the virus came to light, organisers were informed that the Safety Advisory Group (SAG) will not be meeting until March.

Mrs Reader said that directors had discussed the possibility of putting on a smaller event by using only the Recreation Ground but stated that it would be “irresponsible” to encourage large numbers of people to attend until the virus is under control.

She added: “We do hope that residents and our traders understand the dilemma that we find ourselves in.

“We would dearly love to be planning our sixth festival rather than talking about a further postponement to 2022, but we have to take into consideration the health and well-being of our committee, visitors and our bank account.

“There is much determination to carry on by our volunteer committee and so we hope that we can have the continued support from our sponsors, traders and visitors for the future.”