ORGANISERS of Dalton Carnival have announced the cancellation of this year's event.

The carnival was due to go ahead this Saturday June 10.

A statement issued by Dalton Carnival Committee Chairman Neil McDougall

said the decision to cancel had been taken after assessing the weather forecast for the rest of the week and the weekend.

Statement in full

We have taken the decision to cancel both the parade and the field event at Dowdales on Saturday.

We have a good relationship with Dowdales School who very kindly let us use their facilities and we want Dowdales to be able to trust us in our judgement and decision making whilst on their premises. Following the wet weather on Monday and Tuesday (and the current forecast for Thursday and Saturday), we are concerned that the entrance/exit gate and field could turn into a mud bath posing a health & safety risk.

The safety of all concerned is paramount and we have taken the tough decision to cancel all activities at an advanced stage to be fair to all those involved.

We were also informed at last nights committee / safety meeting by the Police Sargent that all the Dance Schools have booked a community hall in Barrow for dancing in if it rains, we had not been consulted by any Dance Schools about this and we are not responsible for the running of this, we believe that also if we went ahead although we have commercial grade marquees over our dance boards that the dance schools would leave our field and leave us with no event for you.

Cancelling will cost the carnival about £5,000 in pre paid measures, we can assure all programme advertisers that we are meeting at Dowdales on Saturday lunchtime to distribute 1,500 programmes to houses within Dalton and if anybody would like to help us post these out please come along for 12 o'clock.

We thank you for your continued support and hope you understand why we have made decision.

Neil McDougall Chairman.