The Covid pandemic has forced a hugely popular folk festival around Weymouth harbourside to be cancelled for the second year running.

The Wessex Folk Festival, the popular free celebration of music and dance, was due to take place on Weymouth quayside over the first weekend of June.

But when the Government set June 21 as the earliest date for a full lifting of Covid restrictions the organisers said they were left with 'no choice' but to cancel the event.

Despite the Prime Minister announcing a roadmap which will take the country out of lockdown restrictions, the uncertainty means many events which would usually take place in the summer are being reviewed.

A decision was made earlier this month to cancel Weymouth Carnival which was due to make a comeback in August. The Great Dorset Steam Fair for later that month is also off, as is Weymouth Fayre in the Square in May.

It is understood a decision will be made on July's Dorset Seafood Festival in the coming days.

Camp Bestival is set to go ahead at Lulworth Castle at the end of July.

But the folk festival is off. Chairman of the organising committee, Eileen Bramley, said: “We have had to make the decision we were hoping so much that we wouldn’t have to make and cancel Wessex Folk Festival 2021, which was due to run over the weekend June 4 to 6.

"Although the decision was forced upon us by the Government’s roadmap, which doesn’t allow for public gatherings until late June, we all feel that it is a necessary and right step for us to take."

She added: “You can be sure that the first weekend in June next year will see us back with the most popular street festival in the South West. In the meantime, we will be working to move the festival forward to even bigger and better things in 2022.”

The event is one of the biggest free folk music festivals in England. It regularly attracts thousands of people who line the quayside to listen to dozens of live music acts, eat local produce and watch morris dancing performances.

The event was last held in 2019. It was replaced with a virtual event last year and there was hope it could go ahead in 2021.

The organisers are hoping to keep the spirit of the Wessex Festival alive over the summer by putting on some smaller events featuring musicians who would have been playing on the quayside stages.

Details of these events will be posted on the festival’s website at www.wessex.folkfestival.com as soon as they have been finalised.