This year's Leura gardens festival is the latest coronavirus casualty but the committee is charging ahead with plans for improvements at Katoomba hospital, which has benefited so much from festival-raised funds in the past.
In a statement, the festival committee said it had made the "difficult decision to cancel the festival scheduled for October".
The committee's main considerations included not wanting to put the garden visitors, volunteers and garden owners at risk.
Also, in the knowledge that it generally takes garden owners many months to prepare a festival garden, a decision had to be made sooner rather than later.
At the same time, festival president, Brooke Broughton, recently met with senior managers at the Blue Mountains District Anzac Memorial Hospital and agreed to fund two major projects with over $350,000 raised from previous years' festivals.
The first project is the total refurbishment and upgrading of the Allied Health Centre which is an area for rehabilitation and treatment of hospital patients and outpatients.
The second project will see the installation of a pneumatic tube system to speed delivery of samples from the Emergency Department to Pathology, which will facilitate a speedy return of results.
Work is planned to commence in the coming weeks.
The gardens festival, which started in 1965, has raised upwards of $3 million for the hospital over the years.
Dates for the 2021 gardens festival have already been set. It will be held over two long weekends: Saturday, October 2, to Monday, October 4, and Friday, October 8, to Sunday, October 10.
Information is available on the festival website at www.leuragardensfestival.com.au or call 0431 095 279. Or follow the festival on Facebook and Instagram.
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