Organisers of Buxton Carnival and Well Dressing hopeful for small scale event

This is the second year running the traditional event will not take place in July because of the Coronavirus pandemic but a smaller scale event may still be possible later in the year.

With the government looking to remove all social restrictions by June 21 this year, the team behind the carnival said the July dates were too soon after, so they have made the tough decision to postpone the event.

Committee chairman Richard Lower said: “If the restrictions aren’t lifted we would have done all this work for nothing and if they are we are asking a lot from our volunteers who may not feel at ease so we have made the sad decision to push the event back to later in the year, maybe late summer early autumn when we have a better idea of what is going on.”

The carnival costs around £16,000 each year to organise and marshall correctly and behind the scenes work normally starts in April to be ready for the July festivities which is why a decision has had to be made now.

Richard said: “We rely a lot on other people to help make the carnival and well dressing a success from the scouts and guides decorating floats to the petallers who make the wonderful displays.

"All of this is work that is done in close proximity to others and people may not feel ready to jump in to something like this just days after restrictions ease.

"We plan on putting on a well dressing and maybe a smaller scale carnival procession later in the year if we can and are full of hope that we will be able to.

"Thank you to everyone over the years who has supported the carnival. This is not the end of it, there is still a huge drive to organise it and we hope that next year we can be back properly but for now we are just trying to keep everyone safe.”

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