Corby Highland Gathering called off for second year

An English town's Highland Gathering has been called off for the second year in a row "with sadness", its organising committee has said.

The event, founded in 1968, has celebrated the strong Scottish links and heritage of people in Corby in Northamptonshire.

Organisers said current Covid restrictions would make it unsafe for the thousands that attend every year.

They said they would return in 2022 with an "even bigger and better event".

Hundreds of people in the town are Scottish or of Scottish descent, since workers started moving there from the 1930s onwards to work in the iron and steel industries - sectors which have mostly disappeared.

According to the 2011 census, 7,765 of people of the town's population of 61,255 were born in Scotland - some 12.7%.

The gathering, which was due to take place in July, features pipe band and highland dancing competitions, and is said to be the biggest such event held outside Scotland, attracting teams from across the world.

The committee said that with security, insurance and other expenses, it costs about £14,000 to put on and all money is raised by sponsorship.

In a statement on its Facebook page, organisers said: "It is with sadness that the Highland Gathering Committee have decided to call off this year's event.

"Many dancing schools up and down the country are still not meeting in full, pipe band practice is still limited and there are the risks on will it be safe for thousands of people to be on the show ground together at one time."

They added that they believed there were "too many risks to pay out large deposits for staging etc with no certainty the event can even happen".

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