Leek Arts Festival is to return in 2022 after being cancelled for two years straight due to Covid-19 restrictions, its organisers have said.

The festival will be returning to Leek in May next year for the first time since 2019. Last year's festival "never got off the ground" due to Covid restrictions, while the 2020 festival had to be cancelled at the last minute.

However, the festival is returning for a full six weeks next year, with organisers saying it will even boast "major international stars".

A spokesperson for the festival said: "After two years with no Leek Arts Festival - due to the dreaded Covid-19 - it's great to be able to announce that, subject to no fresh disasters between now and next May, we will be back in 2022.

"LAF 2020 had to be scrapped just a few weeks ahead of the planned start date - and just days before 30,000 copies of the printed programme were due to be distributed across Leek and the surrounding area. LAF 2021 never even got off the ground because of the Covid-19 crisis.

"But after a frustrating 18 months or so of inaction, Leek Arts Festival committee can confirm that LAF 2022 will be going ahead and that planning for six weeks of events - including major international stars - is now under way.

Leek Arts Festival chairman Phil Edmeades said: "Our small group of volunteers got together in the light of plans to relax the Covid-19 restrictions and unanimously agreed that we should start work on planning for a Festival next May.

"It's been a long wait, but we are now reasonably confident that we will be back to some sort of normality for live music and arts events by May 2022.

"Our volunteers have now begun contacting major artists - including some who had been booked to perform as part of the 2020 LAF programme - to agree new contracts."

Acts who had been due to perform at LAF 2020 included Eddi Reader, Boothby Graffoe, Ian McMillan, The Urban Folk Quartet, Fairport Convention and The Steve Gibbons Band; together with many local artists.

Organisers say that more details of plans for Leek Arts Festival 2022 will be released as soon as possible.