THE 2020 Knutsford Music Festival has been cancelled because of the potential health risks of holding it linked to the coronavirus pandemic.

The popular festival, one of the highlights of the town's arts calendar, was due to be held next month, but was postponed by Knutsford Town Council because of the coronavirus outbreak to a possible date in September.

Members of the Events Committee discussed a report on Tuesday evening (yesterday) on delaying a decision until August before deciding whether to stage this year’s festival in the autumn.

However they felt that the health risks were too great for the festival to go ahead, and agreed to cancel the 2020 event.

Cllr James Power, who is married to a doctor, said that there was concern among doctors and scientists about a second wave of the virus, and to go ahead with such a public event at this time would not be wise.

He said: “My instinct is that this event unfortunately shouldn’t take place with the evidence we have now.

“We have to put the wellbeing and health of the residents at the heart of this.”

His view was echoed by Cllr Elizabeth Beswick, who is a GP and said the festival should be cancelled.

Cllr Andrew Malloy said: “We don’t know what’s going to happen over the next few months, although I don’t think there’s going to be a wonder solution that means Covid-19 disappears from the country, and we need to be very mindful of the health and wellbeing of everyone involved.”

Cllr Mike Houghton said a decision on the music festival could be delayed until August 7, but this was probably just delaying the inevitable.

He said: “If the festival was allowed to go ahead and was to go ahead, it’s going to be a poor imitation of previous festivals in terms of attendances.

“There will be a huge swathe of Knutsfordians not willing to attend who normally would, because of the risk of what might happen.”

He was concerned about the 2020 festival coinciding with a second spike in coronavirus infections, and the ramifications of the town council being held responsible for holding such a public event.

Cllr Quentin Abel said the potential dangers of staging the festival were regretfully too large.

Cllr Lesley Dalzell said: “The risk to the residents of Knutsford is far too great, there will be people coming from outside Knutsford as well, and we don’t want to be held responsible for people being ill.”

More than 200 tickets have been sold for the festival, which councillors were being asked to consider postponing until September 18 to 20.