THE annual Middlewich Charity Boat Pull has been transformed into a full weekend event this year.

The event, which raises funds each year for the Mayor of Middlewich’s chosen charities, usually runs over one day at Middlewich Narrowboats, but this year the organisers want to make the event ‘more worthwhile’.

This year’s event, which will take place this weekend from Friday, August 21, to Sunday, August 23, will see live music from Middlewich Narrowboats, food and market stalls as well as the main event, the boat pull competition.

Greg Williams said: “We go to a lot of effort to make it as fun as possible so we’re just trying to make it more worthwhile and worth coming to.

“We want a lot of people here to enjoy the music. Obviously Sandbach Tyres won it last year so we want to see if Middlewich can win it back. We want to see a few pub teams coming down this year and having a go.

“A lot of people are holiday during the Folk and Boat Festival weekend and they don’t get to see how well we can host a live music event, so this is a chance for us to show what we can do.”

This year’s Mayor of Middlewich Cllr Ken Kingston’s chosen charities are St Luke’s Hopsice and the British Legion.

The competition itself takes place on Sunday and will start at 2pm. Participating teams should arrive between 12noon and 1.30pm.

Teams of four still have time to enter the boat pull competition. To enter a team register in advance by emailing your team name and name of each member and contact number to visionapm@middlewich.org.uk or call 01606 841379. The competition costs £5 to enter.