A POPULAR Kendal festival has been cancelled due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.

The annual Torchlight celebrations though the town - set to take place on September 25 and 26 - will not take place this year, owing to the restrictions brought on by Covid-19.

Torchlight organisers announced earlier this week that this year’s event - its 50th, having started in 1970 - would ‘not proceed’ as normal.

However, the festival said it would be hosting an array of virtual events to make up for the cancellation in a taster video shared via its social media channels.

The organisers said: “To make sure we get to celebrate our special, historic, community tradition in a unique and safe way, we are bringing you a whole host of activities over the summer, with a celebration to mark Torchlight on September 26 and it’s all taking place in your home.”

Among the online initiative for this year’s adapted celebrations are: poster-designing to ‘illustrate the Torchlight theme of Think Global & Act Local’, collage-making to tell a story on the Torchlight theme, flag-, banner- and bunting-making to help decorate the town, sharing ideas of plants that can be grown at home and harvested next month, producing lanterns that can be hung in gardens or windows, digging out pictures of the festival over its 50-year history, sharing stories of floats or costumes made with workmates, community group or schools over the years.

Organisers ask readers to keep an eye on its Torchlight’s social media pages or to contact Craig Russell directly for more information at: craig@kendaltorchlight.co.uk.