Walking Festival is latest casualty of coronavirus
THE Chesterfield Canal Trust has regretfully decided to cancel its Walking Festival – yet another victim of Covid-19.
This would have been the third year of the very popular festival which had been due to take place in September. It is the largest walking festival based around a single waterway.
More than 40 walks had been arranged and the trust was about to start designing and printing the brochure and setting up the booking system with the Chesterfield Visitor Information Centre. This would have incurred substantial costs.
The continued uncertainty about whether the brochures could be distributed properly and the fact that a good proportion of the walk leaders and walkers are in the clinically vulnerable groups led the trust to the conclusion that it would be irresponsible to commit to this expenditure.
One of the festival organisers, Rod Auton, said: “In a few months attitudes may have changed, but at present the prospect of walks with everyone at least two metres apart, wearing masks and not talking face to face is not what we envisaged when we started organising our festival.
“We would like to place on record our thanks to the dozens of walk leaders and organisations that have put lots of work into preparing this year’s festival. We hope that it can be carried over to next year.”
He added: “We would also like to thank all those organisations which had sponsored the festival: Avant Homes, Derbyshire County Council Action Grants, the Canal & River Trust, West Stockwith Parish Council, Misterton Parish Council and Eckington Parish Council.”
This is another blow to the canal trust, which has already cancelled its Canal Festival which had been due to take place in June.
It has cancelled all its public boat trips until August at the earliest, but even these are in peril.
Its base at Hollingwooad Hub, including the very popular Katey’s Coffee Shop, has been closed since March.