THE well-liked Salisbury Half Marathon has been slashed from the racing calendar after low entries caused the organiser to call it off.

The 13-mile course, which sees hundreds of runners run round the city and across quintessential villages, is no longer going ahead.

The news from Total Buzz Events (TBE) comes as a shock to runners in the area as many were gearing up to dust off their shoes and enter the 18th race scheduled for Sunday, October 11.

A spokesman from City of Salisbury Running Club said: “We hadn’t seen the cancellation, which is disappointing – though we’d seen little pre-publicity for the race on October 11 until now.

“Organising any event like this is a sizeable commitment as our running club well knows from its annual 10-mile road race in March.

"There will be a number of runners in the area who had been looking forward to this event, and are just learning from the promoter based in Yeovil that it’s now been called off.

“Let’s hope the race can resume strongly in 2016 as there’s certainly a boom in interest in road running at all distances.”

Organiser TBE says that the “painful decision” was taken to postpone it but they were given little alternative.

Race director Steve Elliott told JournalSport: “Sadly the organisers of the Salisbury Half Marathon have reluctantly taken the decision to cancel the race for this year.”

“Low participant numbers mean it is not financially viable this year.”

People who have already registered can either be refunded, transferred to Stroud Half Marathon or deferred to next year’s event, which organisers are hopeful will go ahead.

Elliott added: “Much work has been going on to re-instate the race for 2016, using a new and exciting route, with more of it based in the city centre.”