WEYMOUTH Half Marathon has been cancelled amid safety concerns - a decision the organiser finds 'difficult to understand' when thousands of people are already flooding to the town every week.

Weymouth Town Council and Dorset Council have cancelled the event, which was due to take place on September 6.

The cancellation comes just a day after the Weymouth Ironman event, also scheduled for September, was called off because of similar worries.

Charlie Sheppard, events manager for Weymouth Town Council, said: "Having carefully considered the health, safety and wellbeing of our community, and following discussions with Dorset Council in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic, we regret to confirm that the Weymouth Half Marathon originally scheduled for Sunday, September 6 cannot take place at the moment and will return in March 2021.

"Both Dorset Council and Weymouth Town Council have requested that the Weymouth Half Marathon is rescheduled to next year; especially in light of local community concerns around such large scale competitor events taking place during the pandemic and their feeling that this is not the right time to be hosting such activities."

Organisers have rescheduled the event, organised by Just Racing UK, for March 21 2021.

Director, Alan Rose, is bitterly disappointed by the cancellation.

He said: "I find it quite difficult to understand why the event has been cancelled when we are seeing tens of thousands of people visiting Weymouth and the beaches are incredibly busy, yet we have a controlled event which would be less than 1,000 people, outside of the school holidays and 50 per cent of the participants are from Dorset.

"With the checks and measures we had put in place, runners taking part in this event would have been some of the safest in the town.

"I just don't understand."

The Weymouth Half Marathon had already been postponed from its initial date of March 22 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Participants will be automatically entered into the March 2021 race, which will be referred to as the '2020' event. A second half marathon is scheduled to take place in October 2021.