PLANS have been unveiled for a community arts festival in Stonehouse this summer.

Stonehouse Community Partnership has joined forces with Global Arts Gloucester – a non-profit social enterprise company – to deliver the six day festival which aims to launch a five-year flagship project in Stonehouse.

The project aims to encourage people into the town centre and includes plans to create a community building in the town for all groups to use as well as a work experience programme between local businesses and pupils from the town’s schools.

The theme of this year’s festival which will take place across the town between Monday, June 30 and Saturday, July 6, with a finale event on the final day, is community, heritage and environment.

“This is quite a broad theme so participants have a much wider basis to draw inspiration from,” said Anna Buckland, of Global Arts, which organised the arts festival in Gloucester last year.

According to Anna the festival will provide an opportunity to showcase artistic talent in Stonehouse through various events such as the big sew fashion show, community murals and live theatre and dance as well as an art of science fair.

“Engineering is an important aspect of the Stonehouse make up, with companies such as Renishaw and Delphi, so we thought it was important to add those elements into the festival,” added Anna.

“So far we have been in contact with both companies to see if they would like to sponsor an event or the project as a whole and asked them to be involved in our work experience programme.”

The project is still in the early stages and discussions are being held between the organisers and voluntary groups and schools in the community as well as Stonehouse Town Council.

At a town council meeting on Monday night Anna, along with John Jeynes, chairman of the Stonehouse Community Partnership outlined their plans for the festival and the project.

They also made a request to the council to consider supporting the project both figuratively and financially by awarding it a £2,000 grant to get started.

“To cover the cost of the entire project will cost £250,000 however we are applying for various grants and are planning a number of fundraisers” said Mr Jeynes.

STC agreed to look at the grant application but no decision was made.