Early New Year's Day dip amid weather warning

An annual New Year's Day sea dip has taken place three days early due to a weather warning for 1 January.

The Westward Ho! dip took place on Sunday in north Devon. About 1,000 people wore fancy dress and raised money for the local area.

A yellow wind warning is in place for New Year's Day for Devon from 07:00 BST until 23:59, with snow, rain and wind warnings in place for other parts of the UK.

Organiser Peter Sawyer, managing director of Visit Westward Ho!, said moving the event had resulted in "the most stressful day yet".

He said: "[It's] always a risk moving an event, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

"The Sunday morning was perfect for the dip, the village was rammed and although only half turned up it was still packed.

"It was better to make half the people happy than to make all of them unhappy with a last minute cancel."

Mr Sawyer said: "If we had moved it back into January then all the holidaymakers would have gone home.

"Many book into Westward Ho! just to attend this event.

"I wanted it to be safe, involve locals and visitors so it needed to be a Sunday."

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