The organisers of Bluedot Festival have announced that it will not take place this year due to the challenges of Covid-19 restrictions.

The Jodrell Bank music, science and culture event, which was due to run from 21-25 July 2021, will now take place between 21 and 24 July 2022.

In a statement, Bluedot organisers said that they had considered changed the layout, line-up and date of the festival, but had eventually decided that this would be 'disappointing and unacceptable' for their ticketholders.

"Following your feedback, it became clear that keeping the same festival on the same weekend would have been the only option that meets the expectations we and you and our partners all share for the festival," they said.

"However, due to a lack of government support around insurance for events such as ours, the risks are too great.

"Despite continuous calls from our industry over the past six months the government have refused to step up and provide us with protection via a government-backed insurance scheme.

"Without such a scheme, which would have provided us with security, the overwhelming risk and high upfront costs for us to hold Bluedot this year are sadly just too high.

"As a small independent festival Bluedot is left with a simple choice – make unacceptable changes to the weekend and risk the future of the festival or look ahead to 2022 and start the planning now for our greatest event yet.

"But do not worry. In the coming months we will be sharing plans as we reimagine Bluedot's return in 2022, exploring the hundreds of reasons you have joined us since we first set foot beneath the telescope in 2016 and curating a series of very special events exploring our universe deeper than ever before.

"Rest assured this doesn't mean we are on hold; with the certainty of moving the next edition to 2022 we are able to kick-start the planning now and put more time and passion than ever before into delivering an out of this world event.

"We'll be sharing those plans with you in the coming weeks & months as we look forward to our return to Jodrell Bank.

You can find out more on the Bluedot website.