THIS year's Otley Carnival has been cancelled as the pandemic makes the event unviable.

In a statement issued this week Otley Carnival Committee chairwoman Natalia Hannan said: "Due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation, Otley Carnival 2021 will unfortunately no longer be going ahead. It was a difficult decision for the committee to make, but our feeling is that the current challenges facing schools, local businesses and community groups, together with the uncertainty over when events as they were pre-pandemic can resume, make the planning required to deliver such a large-scale community event logistically unviable.

"Our hope is that the carnival will return bigger and better than ever in 2022, but if that is to be the case, I'd like to take this opportunity to issue a heartfelt plea. We have a number of vacant key roles on the committee due to recent and upcoming retirements of existing committee members. If we are to secure the carnival's future, we urgently need new committee members to fill these roles."

Anyone interested in helping is asked to get in touch. They can contact the committee on the Otley Carnival Facebook page or by email otleycarnival1@gmail.com.