SUMMER fun has been saved in Macclesfield.

Days after Cheshire East Council confirmed Party in the Park and the Family Fun Day had been axed, a three-day arts festival in June has risen from the ashes.

The Barnaby Festival will take place around the town centre between June 18 and 20 and is the brainchild of a group of local arts enthusiasts.

Theatre, dance, visual arts, live music and exhibitions for all ages are among the possible attractions – many of them free – set to be announced in the next few weeks.

The festival, which has not yet secured any CEC funding, will run day and night throughout the weekend.

But Jane Munro, one of the main organisers and founder of local online arts magazine The Loop, said it was a complete coincidence that Party in the Park had been cancelled.

"We were planning to do this anyway – it is a real shame that Party in the Park and the fun day aren’t going ahead too. This is about celebrating the culture and heritage of Macclesfield in the town centre. We have a display at the town hall stating that ‘Barnaby is back’! We are reinventing it.  It is all very well moaning about not having this and that in Macclesfield but we wanted to do something about it – we’re a like-minded group that don’t mind getting their hands dirty. Things like opera, theatre and dance don’t appear here very often if at all. Most towns have some sort of festival.  We don’t just want it to land on Macclesfield – we want it to be visible and beneficial to the town centre. A bit of an arts scene has developed in Macclesfield – there is great music for example but no proper venue. I don't want to have to go to Manchester or Buxton, so we started thinking about this about 18 months ago."

The hope is the weekend will raise enough funds to finance an even bigger version next year and begin a new tradition.

The mother-of-two, who lives in Macclesfield, said she is ‘optimistic’ about getting some funding from Cheshire East Council.

Macclesfield Barnaby Festival will announce more details about the event next month.

Cheshire East Council leader Wesley Fitzgerald said: "Money is scarce. When it comes to events, we have a hard thing to ask – is it really benefiting a sufficient number of people in Cheshire East for it to be value for money."

Visit www.barnabyfestival.org.uk   to find out more, or, go to maccloop.blogspot.com for the latest arts listings.