Ottery’s Food and Families Festival has been cancelled.

The event was due to be held on September 9, but the festival committee have announced, with ‘great regret’, that the event cannot take place this year, because of a lack of funding. 

Event manager Victoria Robinson told the Herald: "The festival costs around £15,000 to put on and we have been determined to keep it free to enable as many of the community as possible to come along.

"This means we have to raise £5,000 through fundraising but unfortunately our fundraiser had to stand down and we couldn't fill the post, leaving too short a time to fill the financial hole.

"Some of our regular sponsors and advertisers didn't come forward this year because they are also feeling the effects of the economic climate and that has made things harder for us.

"95 per cent of our traders are from East Devon and most of the festival-goers so we expect it to have a knock-on effect locally.

"It's been a really tough decision to take, especially as it's the 10th festival, but we have to look to the future and make 2024 the absolute best it can be.

"We are looking for people to join the committee and to sponsor the event next year so if anyone can help they should email otteryfood.info@gmail.com"

Ottery Food and Families Festival was first held in 2013, at a time when Ottery was beginning to develop into a ‘foodie’ destination. The first festival took place in part of the Sainsbury’s car park and was a relatively small event, but over the years it spread out to various locations around the town.

This made it increasingly difficult to organise, with high costs for road closure orders and liability insurance, so the festival was moved to a field near Otter Nurseries.

The first festival in the new location was held in 2021 and was hailed a huge success. Last year’s event, in the same location, featured a wide range of entertainment, an Ottery Tent for local businesses to showcase themselves, and the first-time addition of a Wellbeing Tent, which proved extremely popular.

All these attractions were planned for this year, and the organisers hope to bring them back in 2024.