CREDITON has been decorated with 40 vibrantly coloured flags, which have been hung in the town as part of the Crediton Festival, which starts tomorrow, Saturday, June 1 and finishes on Saturday, July 13.

Each colourful flag has been individually designed to represent local businesses and voluntary organisations, many of whom made their own unique flag at a series of workshops held by community artists, Charlotte Turner and Bridget Arnold. Others were made with the help of a team of volunteer seamstresses.

The flags were put up by a team consisting of Nick Mussell and Nick Downie from the Tanglewood Project, Rod Brookes-Hocking (Festival chairman), Rosemary Stephenson (Festival secretary) and volunteer Paul Cartwright.

The flag poles were hand-crafted from locally coppiced, sustainable wood and the flags were sewn from vibrantly coloured fabric. After the festival the flags will be taken down and stored for use at future events.

The three year project is run by Crediton Arts Centre and funded by the government's High Street Innovation Fund. Those businesses who missed out this time will have the chance to make a flag at later workshops, where it is planned to create another 30 flags.

A free drop-in family flag workshop will be held on the first day of the festival Saturday, June 1, at 38 High Street, Crediton from 10am to 4pm.

This will give families the opportunity to make a small flag together.

Children must be accompanied and supervised throughout by a responsible adult as sewing machines are used as part of the flag making process.

Students from the Year 8, Textiles Group, at Queen Elizabeth's Academy, will be able to make their own flags at a workshop with Bridget and Charlotte on Wednesday, June 26. The flags will be used to brighten the entrance to the lower School site.

Nora Parminter