Freedom Parade in Gosport cancelled due to 'extreme weather' as heatwave hits hard
The ceremony was due to take place at 11am today.
A ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of Gosport’s naval base has been cancelled due to the heatwave.
HMS Sultan, granted the Freedom of the Borough in 1975, was planning to exercise its historic right to march through the town today. Known as the Freedom Parade, naval officers would have been gathering in Lawrence Square, before marching along the High Street to Falkland Gardens, where the salute would have been taken.
A salute was then meant to be taken by the Mayor of Gosport, Councillor Kirsten Bradley, Vice Lord-Lieutenant Charles Ackroyd, and commanding officer of HMS Sultan, Captain Mark Hamilton.
But a spokesperson for the borough council has confirmed that the event has been called off at the eleventh hour “due to the extreme heat” down at Gosport waterfront.
It comes as the temperature continues to rise in the ongoing heatwave, with the weather expected to hit 38 degrees Celsius in Gosport later today.
HMS Sultan, commissioned in 1956, is a leading Royal Navy engineering training establishment and has long-standing links with the Gosport community.