LEAMINGTON Peace Festival has been cancelled for a third year running.
The long-running festival in the Pump Room Gardens was last held in 2019 – its 41st anniversary.
The popular summer event was cancelled during the pandemic and has been axed once again this year due to a ‘number of reasons’.
A spokesperson for the festival committee said: “Unfortunately the Leamington Peace Festival will not be going ahead this year.
“The festival, for a number of reasons, is not in a position to run for 2022 but hopefully will be back soon for another fantastic event.”
The free festival features a variety of stalls, talks, music and activities and treatments to promote peace and wellbeing.
The inaugural event, at the time called the Leamington Festival for International Understanding and Peace, was held in 1978. It was inspired by previous festivals held, with themes of peace, including by the Peace Pledge Union, Oxfam Festival and Leamington Spa Health Foundation.
Gian Clare is the chair and founding member of the Warwick and Leamington branch of the United Nations Association which was involved in organising the early festival events.
He said: “For the first 12 years I helped with the organisation of the festival.
“I had always admired how well the festival was organised and run very professionally and always had an excellent volunteer force behind it. I often had written to the local papers thanking the committee for their hard work and dedication to the cause. As the founder member, the local UN Association every year had a stall at the festival.”
Mr Clare is hoping to get involved once again and is encouraging others to contact the committee to help with next year’s event.
Those interested in being involved should email [email protected].
