Burnham-On-Sea’s Christmas Food Festival – which was scheduled to take place on December 5th – has been cancelled amid safety concerns due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
Organisers from eat:Festivals have announced the cancellation of all their festive events across Somerset after receiving an update from the Director of Public Health for Somerset.
The cancellation comes just a week after Burnham’s autumn food festival, which was due to take place on October 24th, was also halted, as we reported here.
Co-organiser Sarah Milner Simonds told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “We have made many adaptations to our operating model and delivered six safe, welcoming events over the summer in Portishead, Minehead, Wellington, Yeovil, Weston-super-Mare and Nailsea.”
“These events have given the communities we work with an opportunity to shop for local food and drink in the open air – but the situation has changed and the infection rate is rising locally.”
“Despite our adaptations and mitigations the only way for us to contribute to the protection of public health is to cancel the four events planned for Taunton on November 28th, Burnham-On-Sea on December 5th, Minehead on December 12th and Weston-super-Mare on December 13th.”
“This is done with heavy hearts but our producers’ and the public’s safety are our primary concerns. We looked at how we could adapt the market further but the consensus was that, in these conditions, the event is too popular to be able to maintain the covid-secure status we have worked so hard to achieve.”
Co-organiser Bev Milner Simonds adds: “For many of the micro and small food and drink businesses the events we delivered this summer were the only face-to-face (or mask-to-visor) trading opportunities of the whole year.”
“We will be posting our trader contact details on social media and enhancing their listings on our website, so please do buy from these businesses if you can. We are looking forward to showcasing a great range of local producers in a town near you in the spring.”
Since the start of the Coronavirus pandemic the District Council environmental health teams and Somerset County Council Public Health have been working with event organisers such as eat:Festivals to ensure that events in Somerset proceed and comply with the Covid-secure standards established by central government, with the aim of reducing the risk of transmission of the virus.
A representative of the Director of Public Health for Somerset says: “eat:Festivals have done everything we have asked of them (and more) to ensure that events go ahead with the minimum of risk.”
