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The chair of Humber Business Week is urging firms to take part in a series of online events next week - as she pledged to bring the event back in full next year.

Humber Business Week was set to take place next week but was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Chair Kath Lavery says the cancellation has left a "huge hole" in the annual business calendar. The next event has already been pencilled in for Monday June 7th to Friday June 11th next year.

But in the short term, the Humber Economic Resilience Group has organised a schedule of online events next week to take the place of the planned networking events. Organisers say the week-long OneHumber programme is aimed at helping businesses "rethink and rebuild together".

Mrs Lavery said: "We took the decision to cancel Humber Business Week for 2020 as we recognise that the week largely relies on businesses themselves organising and staging events which, at this time, most would find impossible.

“We always say it is a week for business, delivered by local businesses. We simply couldn’t expect people to be planning events this year, even online.

“We also firmly believe that one of the major strengths of Humber Business Week is the bringing together of so many people from businesses across the region physically, offering huge networking opportunities.

“Given Business Week isn’t happening this year, we are delighted to see the members of the Humber Economic Resilience Group providing something different and throughout next week which can offer relevant and vital support.