A RIVER festival is hopefully on its way for the Tamar Valley but community involvement is required to decide on the format of the festival.

The Tamara Landscape Partnership team at the Tamar Valley Centre has teamed up with FEAST which is an arts programme which invests in a wide range of community cultural projects across Cornwall’ that is managed by Creative Kernow. FEAST is assisting the Tamara Landscape Partnership team in creating a festival that belongs to the Tamar Valley community.

This week, FEAST held engagement days to allow them to ascertain the sort of activity that already exists and find out what the festival might look like.

Jack Morrison, FEAST project manager said: ‘The experts in living and working in the Tamar Valley AONB are the people who live and work in the Tamar Valley AONB. This festival would have to work for them so we really want to hear from them.

‘If communities on the Tamar and in the Tamar Valley are invested in it and think it’s theirs and belongs to them then it will be a success and they will look after it. The ideas really do need to come from the community. If people want the community spaces to have live music then it will be a music festival, if people want to promote local artists and their work then we’ll do that. There is fabulous art and culture in the Tamar Valley. We want to find out what people want to see and what it’s for. We want to excite people about the Tamar Valley’.

Jack explained that the Tamara Landscape Partnership wish to ‘promote community cohesion and work with communities in the AONB. The festival will involve ‘pulling everyone in the area together and reinforcing the communities that are there’ and the way the Tamara Landscape Partnership aim to do this is through ‘community celebration.’ The Tamara Landscape Partnership also want to find out from people how they might in the lead up to the festival run bespoke sessions and activities with creative materials produced for the following user groups:

Young people - primary and secondary.

Users supported by charities and social prescribing staff.

Residents of our adjacent urban conurbations, such as Plymouth, with barriers to accessing the Tamar Valley such as transport.

Run a festival programme of activities in locations across the Valley with external partners, finally culminating in a end of festival ‘celebration event’.

Raise awareness of the special landscape qualities of the Tamar Valley AONB by linking arts events/installations with sites of high visual quality and remarkable heritage.

Arts and heritage focus to deliver AONB’s Arts in the Landscape Strategy.

Raise awareness of, and celebrate, our rivers & their importance.

If you wish to provide your opinion then please email [email protected] and a form can be sent to you.