WELLINGTON Carnival will go ahead next month despite rumours this week that it was in trouble.

Roger Nunn, a member of the carnival committee, told the Wellington Weekly News: “The carnival will be staged this year, but it won’t be on as grand a scale as it has been in the past. We believe this will be the case with the other carnivals on our circuit.”

The carnival will be held on Saturday, September 24 for the first time in three years due to the Covid pandemic.

Wellington Town Council has backed the carnival committee with £5,000 to cover much of the cost of reviving the event.

A carnival committee meeting was held on Monday evening and afterwards an appeal was made via Facebook for organisations to enter the carnival. Carnival committee chairman Paul Goodyer said: “We are still looking for sponsorship and for support from local schools.

“It will be a celebration of carnival rather than what we have been used to in the past.

“Although I have been chairman for some time, this is my first carnival because of the pandemic.

“We have 30 entries so far and we are still looking for more. We have had a lot of help from the federation and the council.”

Town councillor John Thorne said: “We are all fully behind the carnival committee’s efforts to put on the procession again after such a long absence.  It would be such a brilliant occasion for everybody if it starts up again because we always get thousands of people coming together to watch.”

The carnival will start at a slightly different point this year – from the traffic lights at Rockwell Green, proceeding through the town centre and finishing at Priory.