THE Blackdown Beer and Music Festival will not be held this year - due to the event being hit by bad weather in the past two years.

The festival, which takes place at Cherry Hayes Farm, Smeatharpe, every August, has also experienced some financial troubles in recent times.

Last year’s event ‘just broke even’, while the rainy event the previous year saw it make a loss of £7,000.

A spokesman for the event said: “As we approach the summer and people plan for their year ahead, the team behind the festival thought it would be the correct time to announce we will not be putting on the event this year.

“It is with sadness that we are announcing this and have taken much deliberation over the decision. We all love the festival, as we know many of our supporters do.

“Not only is it a great social gathering for friends and family but consistently raises much-needed funds for a wide range of deserving causes, primarily music related.

“There are many reasons we have come to this decision and we wanted to take the time to explain why this has come about.

“The previous two years of poor weather and even poorer attendance has topped the list.

“We made substantial losses of £7,000 for the 2017 festival and just broke even on the 2018 festival.”

Organisers say they are taking a year off to explore ways to safeguard the event for the future in the event of ‘adverse weather’.