Pancake races cancelled due to bad weather

People will be going flipping crazy as pancakes fever hits Comet country over the next week, but one town's events have been battered by the weather.

On Saturday, Hitchin's Pancake Fayre will take place in Market Place with pancake making, games and live music. This is a precursor to the big event on Shrove Tuesday when gents, ladies and fancy dress pancake races take place around the old square.

Both events, organised by the Rotary Club of Hitchin Priory, are in aid of Garden House Hospice, St John Ambulance and Stevenage-based charity Wheels, which helps wayward youngsters gain apprenticeships.

Rotarian Richard Robinson said: "It's a bit like an old fashioned medieval fayre with hoopla and skittles and pancake making of course. But we've also got Audi there who will be offering test drives for �10 towards the charities and there will be live jazz and rock n roll music."

But in Stevenage the town centre management cancelled this year's Pancake Day races blaming a lack of helping hands and the bad weather.

Town centre manager Tracey Parry said: "We were working in partnership with Specsavers, who get the radio station involved and do the pancakes but they have said they have no staff to help us. Also most schools have been shut over the last couple of weeks because of the snow and it takes time to get permission from parents and that kind of thing, so we only have one school taking part. So we have decided to cancel it this year."

Adam Lovatt, director of Stevenage Specsavers, said: "We are the ones that implemented the event. The main reason that it has been called off is because we had handed it over to the town centre management team to organise a kid's only event this year. There's only one school that they contacted or who got back to them. We were quite happy to help. We've got more than enough people. It's a real shame - it's such a good event.