THE opening night of Corbridge's Tynedale Beer Festival has been cancelled for the first time in 17 years, due to high winds.

The event, which was due to get under way on Thursday night, is organised by Tynedale Lions and Tynedale Rugby Club, and attracts thousands of visitors to Tynedale Park each year.

However, with strong winds caused by the weather system named Storm Hector expected to continue in to tonight, the team of organisers have been forced to take the decision on safety grounds.

A message on the Tynedale Beer Festival website confirms that events on Friday and Saturday are still expected to go ahead as planned.

"Unfortunately due to extremely high winds down at Tynedale Park, we have had to take the decision to cancel tonight's (Thursday) festival event," it reads.

"Tomorrow and Saturday will go ahead as planned.

"With potential gusts of up to 40 miles an hour forecast for this evening in Corbridge and on such an exposed site, we simply cannot proceed as there are serious concerns for safety on the site generally.

"We are all very disappointed as we know many people were planning to come down to the event this evening including all of our festival sponsors and we are of course sorry for any inconvenience caused.

"However public safety must be and is always our main concern. We pride ourselves on running a professional and safe event and whilst we haven't taken this decision lightly we know that it is the right thing to do."