THE Crediton Town Team was previously the organising group behind the Crediton Festival, the bi-annual event which has grown bigger and more diverse and which promotes sports events, theatre, live music, food, writing competitions and dog shows.

Last year, there were 84 Festival events.

In 2014 the group – made up of volunteers each with project management backgrounds - was approached by Mid Devon District Council to see whether they would extend their work to include community regeneration projects.

They took on some more members, formed themselves into a legal group and the Town Team was born.

Their regular monthly meeting last week shows how far they have come since then.

After quizzing their January visitor, the new District Town Centres Manager Rachel Jenman on what kind of support can be expected in Crediton, they then gave progress reports on four High Street projects they are currently running which are being part-funded by the District Council.

The High Street Flags group reported that plans were in place with the local artist Charlotte Turner to repair some of the 60 existing flags, to create seven wholly new ones, and to create two new large “patchwork”-style banners for hanging in the front windows of empty shop units.

The unique designs are machine-stitched using panes of translucent and very colourful rip-stop nylon from hot air balloons, and have attracted much praise.

In March the team will be renting what was Gee’s Electrical on the high street to run the flag-making workshops.

Also discussed was the organising of a town entrance signs competition.

Funding is in place not for the construction of the signs but for exploring designs and viability and local support.

When a range of final designs have been circulated and presented, funding will then be sought for the construction of the best ones.

Various approaches were discussed including inviting arts and graphics students in the town to explore designs alongside a professional town sign artist.

The long recent wet spell was discussed as part of the progress report on their town square weather protection project.

In this, four local and very experienced architects will be exploring concepts for protecting events in the square from bad weather, something it seems we can expect a lot more of in years to come.

With an open design brief covering both permanent and temporary structures, the architects will need to balance imagination with realism while still keeping the square’s magic open-air atmosphere within a conservation area. Quite a challenge!

The design process is expected to be around Easter-time, with public presentations and judging in mid-June or July.

A fourth project is helping to extend the reach of the annual Food Festival.

Last year’s extension of the event into Market Street was very successful, and this year the plan is to go just that bit further by linking the market street stalls to the high street itself.

The team have bought four new all-weather stalls for the event and they will also be hired out to other events and groups in the town.

A fifth project is a repeat of the successful St Boniface re-enactment event of last year which saw the making of eight replica stained glass windows in the same colourful rip-stop nylon as the high street flags, but in portable metal frames displayed in the town square.

The story of St Boniface was brought to life by a storyteller and actors and it is planned to do this again this year with some improvements.

Word has also spread abroad, and a request has been made by the city of Fulda in Germany (where St Boniface is buried and highly respected) to lend the panels for a similar event there.

The 2017 Crediton Festival was also discussed.

This is the team’s biggest project and takes many weeks and months of planning and fund-raising. Being discussed last week was whether or not to raise funds to appoint a paid festival director to take the festival in new directions as well as reduce some of the work-load on the team.

A seventh project being progressed will potentially be their most challenging of all, the creation of a new “cultural hub” for the town.

It would include a new 200-seater auditorium, seminar and conferencing facilities, café, live music and film programmes, voluntary sector meeting spaces and small start-up business units.

Very much a long-term project, the team is exploring new-build options as well as the complete renovation of existing but run-down properties.

They have visited five other arts and cultural centres around the county to compare running costs and public use.

To find out more about the Town Team visit their website at: http://www.credfest.co.uk">www.credfest.co.uk .

Alan Quick