Hundreds of residents came together to support the return of the Burnham-on-Crouch Carnival on Saturday (25 September), after last year's event was cancelled due to the pandemic.

Organisers quickly overcame a difficult start to the day, which was largely caused by panic buying at petrol stations over the weekend.

A spokesperson for Burnham Carnival said: "We arrived to a power cut and the main road into Burnham was blocked because of the fuel panic.

"This led to delays in stallholders arriving and the stage running off a generator for most of the day."

Despite this, the carnival kicked off only ten minutes later than planned.

"From then on, the day was fantastic," the spokesperson said.

Residents enjoyed a range of entertainment on the High Street including a tug of war, circus workshop, fancy dress competition, fire act and carnival draw.

Acts that performed during the day included local dance groups Epic Dance and E and E Dance, juggler Steve Arnold and Graeme Matthews from Britain's Got Talent.

Over 20 characters from Blackwater Pirates, Essex Cosplay and A Fairytale Dream walked around with buckets during the day to raise money for the charities which apply for funding after the carnival - the spokesperson said that they were "loved by everybody".

One person from each group also judged the children's fancy dress competition at 1.45pm at the Clock Tower.

The popular annual 999 race between the ambulance service, coastguard rescue team, RNLI and fire brigade saw the coastguard volunteers come out on top.

There was no procession this year, after organisers were forced to cancel it due to factors including time, safety, a lack of carnival queens and there being an insufficient number of volunteers on the committee.

The spokesperson said: "Without the procession this year, we decided to go into the evening with the entertainment."

From 6.30pm, there was live music from Livy English, Craic Heads and Michael Joslin.

Band T-Bone Steak rounded off the celebrations at 9.30pm alongside fireworks from Stevens Funfair.

The spokesperson added: "I want to say a massive thank you to the committee, especially Danny, Wayne, Terry, Ivor and Damien who made the day run smoothly.

"WDM Sound also kept the entertainment flowing all day.

"Hopefully next year we can come back even stronger and with the illuminated procession."

For regular updates, you can visit the Burnham-on-Crouch Carnival Facebook page using the link here.

You can view more work by Essex photographer Daniel Reed, who stepped in at the last minute to document the carnival, on Instagram via the link here.