Food festival put flood-hit town 'back on the map'

The event will showcase specialist food from across Cumbria

Organisers have hailed the positive impact of a food festival originally launched to help a "devastated" town recover from floods, as the event marks its 15th anniversary.

Hundreds of people had to be rescued by emergency services when parts of Cockermouth, in Cumbria, found themselves under 8.2ft (2.5m) of water in November 2009.

The town's Taste festival was launched the following year using government funding - in the wake of the flood devastation - and returns this weekend, with 25,000 visitors expected.

Suzanne Elsworth, of Taste Cumbria, said last year's event brought £2.3m into the local economy.

An estimated 900 properties and 1,400 people were affected when heavy rainfall caused rivers to breach their banks in 2009.

"It was a huge shock," recalls Ms Elsworth, who had only moved to the town three weeks earlier.

"It caught everybody out. People watched the water rise and rise, and tried to protect what they could before they were told to evacuate.

"All of Main Street and Market Place - the heart of the town - was devastated. Some of the businesses were out of action for months."

The 2009 flood saw many people evacuated by emergency services

Money from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs was used to stage the first festival in 2010, as a way of promoting the message that Cockermouth "was open for business" once again, Ms Elsworth explains.

The festival's importance was highlighted when another flood struck in 2015.

Such is the festival's popularity that it has expanded well beyond its original location on Main Street, and this year will include stalls in Market Place, the reopened Jennings Brewery, and the Memorial Gardens car park.

Over the years, the focus has shifted towards regional food, showcasing local businesses alongside a range of family-friendly offerings such as a fairground, street theatre and face-painting.

"We sit on the fringes of the Lake District, and haven't got a lake shore - like Keswick - or massive fells next to town, so we have to work that little bit harder to tell people how great we are," said Ms Elsworth, a volunteer with Cockermouth Chamber of Trade.

"It's so fixed in people's diaries now they book a year ahead for the hotels."

Thousands of people are expected to visit stalls on Main Street

Andy Walsh, owner of the Coffee Kitchen Bakery, expects to sell 1,000 scones on each of the two days of the festival.

"It's one of the best weekends of the year in the town, with lots of people enjoying themselves," he said.

"High Streets aren't thriving, so any festival that helps is a good thing.

"It was borne out of adversity and has shown we wouldn't be beaten.

"It's helped put Cockermouth on the map."