Pancake race falls flat

The pancake race has been staged since the mid-1990s

A planned children's pancake race has been dropped because of spiralling insurance costs.

Children at Okehampton Primary School in Devon had been looking forward to the annual event on Shrove Tuesday next week.

But the 80-yard run in the town's Red Lion Yard has had to be cancelled because a risk assessment had revealed that 25 marshalls would have to line the race route to ensure public safety.

And last year's £75 public liability insurance bill has rocketed to £280.

I cannot think of a better location than Red Lion Yard - it is not as if it is on the road Mayor Christine Marsh Red tape gone mad? Tell BBC Devon's Soapbox what you think

Organiser Derek Godfrey-Brown said: "A pancake race on Shrove Tuesday is a bit of fun and most of us need as much of that as we can to get us through our lives.

"But I cannot ask the children to pay. If we ever do it again we would have to get a sponsor."

Okehampton Mayor Christine Marsh, said it was another example of bureaucracy ruining simple pleasures.

"I cannot think of a better location than Red Lion Yard - it is not as if it is on the road," she said.

A spokesman for the British Insurance Brokers Association said the UK was an increasingly litigious society and people wanted to cover their backs should an accident occur.