A NEW festival could be coming to Broadgreen.

Parish councillors backed the planned food festival at a meeting on Tuesday night.

They agreed to ringfence council funds to support the event.

If given the go-ahead by council license officers, the Broadgreen Community Centre-organised festival would be held on June 16.

The centre’s development manager, Gifty Tawiah, told South Swindon parish councillors that the event would drive “community cohesion”.

She said: “The idea is to try and have a community based activity in the Broadgreen area, with the community centre at the core of it.

“The suggestion is to have a street food festival and close off to vehicles the streets that border the community centre and put the streets to use for having food stalls, charity stalls and other small retail stalls.”

The cost of putting on the festival were estimated to be £10,000 - with centre staff hoping to claw back £5,000 from the sale of drinks and stall pitches.

Gifty said she hoped to attract seasoned food stall holders to the event, as well as local restaurants.

Councillors were largely supportive of the plans - but offered some practical suggestions.

Coun Mary Gladman addressed plans to use St Luke’s car park: “I actually think the festival is a great idea and I really don’t want to throw any spanners in the works

“But having spoken to our church warden about the possible use of the church car park for portaloos, although that land belongs to the church, we have a terrible job getting rid of people who park on there. You’ll never get it free for long enough to get the portaloos on there. “

Coun Imtiyaz Shaikh asked that kosher and halal caterers were invited to participate.

While veteran councillor Stan Pajak suggested that a celebrity chef be asked to open the event.

“You cannot watch the television in the week without a food programme being on,” he said. “We should get a big name to open it like Jamie Oliver.”

Parish council chairman Chris Watts said: “This is what our parish council should be doing.”