A MAJOR food and drink festival in Minehead has been cancelled over Covid fears.

It was decided it was too risky to run eat:Minehead in the town as planned on Saturday, April l0.

Minehead BID members decided that holding the event at this time was "not feasible nor sensible in the current climate", especially before non-essential shops are allowed to re-open.

Last year both the October and December eat:Minehead festivals were also called off due to the pandemic.

Graham Sizer, chairman of Minehead BID, said: "It is with great sadness that we are announcing the cancellation of the spring 2021 eat:Minehead food festival.

"eat:Minehead festivals have proved very popular and we wanted to start off the 2021 season with a bang.

"We had to cancel the October event at the last minute because of rising Covid numbers at that time, so we had hoped that this one would go ahead because the infection numbers had been falling dramatically and it had been months in planning and the event was fully compliant with health and safety legislation and Covid regulations.

"In the end though, it was felt that holding this two days earlier than some of our levy paying shopkeepers could legally reopen just was not the right thing to do.

"Minehead BID has been up and running for nearly three years, but for one of those years many of our projects have had to be put on hold.

"Our businesses are eager to put Covid behind us and get the town back to normal, but their feedback in recent days about the timing of this event has meant we will have to wait a little longer.

"We are now looking forward to the eat event planned for October 2."

The decision to cancel was taken at the Minehead BID board meeting last night (Tuesday), where the welfare and the thoughts of Minehead businesses was paramount in the BID board decision.

eat:Minehead organisers Bev and Sarah Milner-Simonds said: "We really enjoy working with Minehead BID and it is important to us that our events contribute to the town's success. We look forward to celebrating great local food and drink in Minehead on October 2."