It is with great regret that Ashford Rugby Club has taken the decision not to hold its annual Beer Festival this year (2017).

Explaining the decision, Chairman John Norman said: “Over the years that we have hosted the Beer Festival it has become increasingly popular and we are now in a position where we are victims of our own success. The festival was set up to raise funds for the development of the club and was originally successful in this objective. However, as the event has grown dramatically in size we have had to invest considerable amounts of additional money in fencing, security and local authority regulation, which has made the event commercially unviable. For the past two years our volunteers have invested 100s of hours of their time to stage the event, for no financial benefit to the Club.

“We have therefore decided not to host the Festival this year. We appreciate that this will be very disappointing to the many thousands of people who have enjoyed the event in the past. We thank everyone for their past support and we will review the decision next year.”