A £30,000 Millennium Festival will bring carnival fever to Colchester for a week of Covent Garden style events.

The activities will be launched with a revamped carnival parade on July 22.

There will be scores of activities to attract residents and tourists to the town centre in the following days.

There will be a two-day international food and drink fair in the Vineyard Street market place.

Producers from twinned towns in Europe will bring their wares, including wine, cheese and bread, to be tasted alongside the best of goods from Essex and Suffolk.

A weird and wacky collection of entertainers, including heavy metal morris men dressed in leather, who use spanners and lead piping, acrobats and stuntmen will perform in Lion Walk.

There will also be live world music in Culver Square, a Samba school, a Passion Play by the Priory Players and a sculpture workshop.

The carnival has been revamped to stop it getting too jaded and to involve more sectors of the community.

Schoolchildren will work with a cardboard artist to produce Notting Hill style figures to be used in the carnival.

The festival, organised by Colchester Council and the town centre management, will be funded by a national lottery grant which was awarded last year.

Town centre manager Simon Mitchell said: "We are hoping to create a total carnival in the town for a whole week.

"We want to breathe new life into the carnival itself and include schools and local community groups to strengthen it for years to come."

The festival will be rounded off with a military show at West Bergholt's Vehicle Parade, which is being backed by the town centre management.

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