A TRADITIONAL festival which has become a fixture in the summer calendar in Lymm has been cancelled because of the rising costs of road closures.

And now a councillor says 'creative thinking' is needed to make sure other events do not fall by the wayside.

Lymm Rushbearing was due to take place on August 14 but with the bill to close roads now topping £1,000, organiser Christopher Limb has been forced to cancel the event.

He has been involved since the 1970s but the event dates back to Victorian times.

Volunteers took part in a training course earlier this year which was intended to allow such public events to take place without a commercial traffic management company.

Mr Limb said: "It now appears that that is not the case and the borough council still require road closures and still require a traffic management company to be engaged.

"Even with a reduced (and in my view unsatisfactory) route and with some reduction of standard fees, the total required is more tan £1,000 and possibly notably more.

"Rushbearing is not an “organisation” in the sense of being a society or group with a committee. It is simply an event.

"A small but traditional event.

"Everyone involved gives their time without fee. It makes no charge (even the refreshments have been given for free). Even including the church service and the “post-procession” time at the Village Hall it lasts about two hours.

"The fees and costs do (I am afraid) kill the event. With regret and great sadness I have decided to cancel this year’s Rushbearing."

Cllr Ian Marks (LD – Lymm) said the situation needs 'urgently' addressing.

He added: "Very sadly this longstanding event has been cancelled for this year.

"For 12 months I have been urging that a proper round table discussion takes place between all the event organisers who need a road closure, the borough and parish councils and the police. This has never happened.

"We thought that the training that took place a few months ago would help but this was not the case due to a communication problem.

"Lymm is enormously fortunate in having such a number of popular community events. The problem is that they require road closures.

"The cost of a closure is huge and the paperwork required is complex so we just have to find a pragmatic solution. We cannot let these events die out.

"As chairman of Lymm Festival I have a specific interest for our Foodfest and I am very familiar with the problems the Historic Transport Day had.

"The meeting must be organised as soon as possible so we have an agreed way forward well before the next road closure is needed. We know money is tight but with some creative thinking surely we can fix it."

A Warrington Borough Council spokesman said: “Due to budget pressures Warrington Borough Council pays for road closures for only a very limited number of major public events. Groups organising smaller events in Warrington have been made aware of this in previous years and the situation has not changed.”

Footage from last year's event: