Sidmouth Air Display cancelled and set to return next year

Sidmouth's skies will not see teams like the world famous Red Arrows over the 2020 August bank holiday weekend after Sidmouth Town Council made the decision to cancel this year's Air Display.

According to a statement: "Though many were hoping that the event could still go ahead, the Town Council has now officially announced that the event will not go ahead this year to help protect the town and enable responsible tourism to continue.

"Though incredibly popular with residents and visitors alike, councillors felt that cancelling this year's event was the responsible thing to do and that they would now concentrate on bringing an air show to Sidmouth for the August bank holiday in 2021."

Cllr Louise Cole, chair of Sidmouth Town Council's Tourism and Economy committee, said: "Whilst we know how popular the air display always is, we also recognise resident's anxieties as we slowly come out of lockdown. We are very fortunate that we have plenty of other high-quality attractions and activities for our residents and visitors, including our fantastic beaches and beautiful walks.

"Working closely with our local businesses, we are supporting recovery in other ways to balance building confidence and safety with the need to boost our tourism industry."

Chair of the Town Council, Cllr Ian Barlow, said: "Though some teams had provisionally confirmed that they would appear in 2020, the Council felt that as the town attempts to recover from lockdown, it would be irresponsible to encourage the expected 30,000 plus people into the Sid Valley and public areas where social distancing would have been difficult to enforce.

"Overall, we felt that the possible risk to health far outweighed any possible short term economic rewards for our community.

"This decision allows us to concentrate on a bigger and better event for 2021."

Sidmouth's Airshow will return next year with a provisional date of Friday, 27 August 2021.