A family-favourite Halloween scare festival has been cancelled.

Organisers behind the Broadwitch Hauntfest near Gravesend have blamed the disruption caused by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as the reason for the event being called off.

But with a little more than two months until the spookiest night of the year, managers at the Broadditch Farm Shop in Southfleet, which hosts fright nights around the October half-term week, say it is with "great regret" they have already made the decision.

A whole range of activities and haunting experiences had been planned by the venue in New Barn Road, including a new attraction for 2020.

Along with the spooky and haunting experiences, the shop was also due to host pumpkin carving sessions for those less daring to take on the Halloween-themed haunts.

Concerns about how visitors would be kept safe while still providing scary close-encounters led managers to decide it would not be possible to continue planning the event.

But they hope to bring the show back next year.

In a statement, organisers said: "It is with great regret that due to the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, Broadditch has made the hard decision to cancel the 2020 Broadwitch Hauntfest.

"We have been closely monitoring the evolving government instructions in regards to mass gatherings and enforcement of necessary social distancing requirements, together with the continued threat of a further local/national waves of the virus.

"We have concluded that we cannot provide our visitors the highly interactive scare experience they have come to expect from Broadwitch, whilst meeting all of the necessary precautions to keep our visitors, actors, vendors, staff and the surrounding community safe.

"We hope you will appreciate that this has been a difficult decision to make, we are however confident that we will return in 2021 and hope that you will want to return."

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