THIS year's Newton Beer Festival has been postponed due to the coronavirus, organisers have announced.

The beer festival was due to be held from April 2 to April 4 at Newton Cricket Club on Crow Lane East.

However, Newtown-le-Willows Rotary Club has announced that the event has been postponed.

In a statement on the Newton Beer Festival website the organisers said they had "reluctantly" decided to postpone the event and hope that it can be held later in the year.

The statement said: "Following recent announcements by the government indicating that restrictions on public events can be expected within the next two weeks as part of the containment plan for the coronavirus outbreak we have reluctantly decided to postpone this year’s Beer Festival.

"Hopefully it can be rescheduled for later in the year dependent upon the lifting of those restrictions."

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It added: "The event costs in the region of £33,000 to stage and is reliant upon sponsors and the public to cover those costs and provide the surplus which Rotary distributes back to the community each year.

"Whilst we do carry event cancellation insurance one of the standard exclusions is communicable disease so the policy will not pay out in the event of cancellation due to coronavirus, leaving the organisers personally liable.

"Consequently due to the substantial financial risks if, as seems likely, the government imposes restrictions on public events we feel that we have no option but to postpone the Festival.

"The decision has not been taken lightly and we realise that this will be a great disappointment to our sponsors and those who support the event.

"We would like to thank our sponsors and suppliers, including the many breweries, for their invaluable support and look forward to staging the event later in the year."

It is hoped the event can be rescheduled for the autumn.