No major summer events will be organised by Dorchester Town Council this year – faced with continues uncertainty over the Covid 19 pandemic.

The decision will affect the annual Loveparks event, outdoor cinema, the Anonymous Festival and the August Bank Holiday music day.

But town councillors heard that Dorchester will not be without some summer happenings with a series of smaller, 'pop up', activities being planned for the Borough Gardens and other venues around the county town.

Deputy town clerk Steve Newman told councillors that the amount of work required to organise the larger events made it too risky to go ahead in the hope that the Government tactics in dealing with the pandemic were successful. He said under the current lockdown release programme the very earliest any larger events could be held was June 21, and even that assumed all the safety tests had been met.

Cllr Andy Canning questioned whether organising events later in the year, such as the August bank holiday music events in Maumbury Rings could be left until May or June to start arranging – but was told by Mr Newman that it would too tight to achieve with any certainty. He said that by this time of year all the major summer events had normally been fully organised.

Cllr Tony Lyall, who works in the music industry, said he thought it would be impossible to arrange any large events at short notice: "Finding any acts now is almost impossible. Anyone who is any good has already been booked and everyone this year is asking for a lot of money. We should just stick to pop up events with local acts," he told the town council management committee.