North East Lincolnshire gets green light for Armed Forces Weekend

North East Lincolnshire Armed Forces Weekend is going ahead this year on the 26 and 27 June.

The two-day free family event has had to be heavily scaled back from original plans to meet public health and safety requirements.

The event at the Meridian Showground in Cleethorpes is free to enter and displays, parades and activities are being staged in two-hour timed slots, to make sure that all requests from public health and the emergency services have been met.

As a requirement of the planning for this year only, organisers have had to ticket the event, with limits on numbers for each session to ensure COVID safety. The free tickets can be collected now from The Blighty Café at The Knoll in Cleethorpes from 10am until 2pm from Monday to Saturday, any day up to the event. They can also be reserved for collection by emailing armedforces2@nelincs.gov.uk.

Over the weekend, shuttle buses will run between Grant Street car park and Thorpe Park, dropping off at the showground where social distanced entry and temperature checks will be operating. Masks will be required on the buses.

North East Lincolnshire’s Armed Forces Champion, Alex Baxter, was keen to stress that this alternative event was for just one-year only:

“Over the years, AFMET has grown our hugely successful Armed Forces Weekend to be the largest free event along the whole of the east coast and we assure people that will return next year.

“However, as we are not entirely out of the woods, the weekend has been organised to accommodate current COVID regulations. As a result, we have changed our plans many times and reached a compromise to ensure our hugely popular event can go ahead. Whilst not what we had envisaged or originally planned for, we remain extremely positive that we have an event that will be well supported."

Though the weekend is funded by the Armed Forces team with donations and sponsorship, it looks to North East Lincolnshire Council for support in its staging.

Council leader Cllr Philip Jackson is delighted to see the event happening:

“Of course we all wanted to see the truly spectacular parade and event that we have enjoyed in past years, and that we will enjoy again. But we are delighted that the team has made sure we can have this event again this year to thank our armed forces community. I’d like to personally thank them for working extremely hard to change their plans in what has been a year of adaptation and change. Please get your ticket, go along and support the 2021 weekend.”