THE Paddle Round The Pier event has been cancelled for the third year in a row.

The annual event, which is Europe’s biggest free beach festival, was due to take place on Sunday, July 3.

However, due to adverse weather, the event was cancelled.

Event organisers originally pushed the start time back until 12.45pm, but later confirmed the Big Paddle event would not be taking place.

“We are so sorry to announce that Paddle Round the Pier, Big Paddle is cancelled,” a Paddle Round The Pier spokesman said.

“Our water safety team have been monitoring the weather conditions all morning hoping that conditions would be okay.

“We have been hanging on in the hope we could go ahead, so our sincere apologies if you have already left home.

“Thank you for supporting our event and we hope to see you all next year.”

The 2020 and 2021 events were cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions.

 The last time the event was able to take place was in 2019, when people set sail on a series of homemade rafts.

The rafts included a giant seagull, a tropical island paradise and a Jaws-themed raft.

There was an estimated 50,000 people on Hove Lawns for the festival.

This year’s Paddle Something Unusual event was also cancelled.

“We have been monitoring the weather very closely and feel that we cannot guarantee safe weather conditions and therefore we have made the difficult decision to cancel Paddle Something Unusual,” the spokesman added.

“We totally understand that this will be very disappointing especially after so many of you have taken so much time to create your craft.”

All entrants will be offered a complimentary place in next year's Paddle Something Unusual.

At this years event, there was due to be a 3.8km swim at 7.15am, followed by a 2.5km swim starting at 9.30am.

A 1.5km swim was due to take place at 11.15am, followed by the Paddle Something Unusual at 12.45pm.

The main event, titled the Big Paddle, and the Doggie Paddle was due to start at 2pm.