Fun day promotes Cherish Chippenham enterprise

The group is holding a family fun day, which will take the form of a town centre festival. There will be bands, live theatre, lots of food and drink and a showing of Bash Street, Chippenham’s very own movie.
 

The Buttercross will form the centrepiece of the spectacle, as the historic monument becomes a stage for performances lasting until 9pm.
 

The owners of Meehan’s Cakery will host the Chippen-ham champion cake creator competition, and sitting alongside a host of business and community enterprise stalls will be a bouncy castle, a noodle bar and a hog roast.
 

Ben Gregory, owner of Digiprint and marketing and events co-ordinator for Cherish Chippenham, said: “It should be a really good day and it is a good opportunity to launch the town team.
 

“We have managed to put this together in four weeks, so fingers crossed all goes to plan.”
 

Cherish Chippenham is a community interest company, set up by various businesses in the town centre.
 

It is a limited company, run by a board of volunteers, mostly business owners.
 

They invested their own money into the company, while they are also looking for outside funding such as, for example, from the Mary Portas pilot scheme.
 

The company will employ a town centre manager later in the year, who will take care of marketing and promoting the town centre.
 

Mr Gregory said: “It is a radical idea. What we are aiming to do is employ a town centre manager from our own private finance, which we have already managed to secure. They will be funded for two years.
 

“We all know there are issues with Chippenham town centre and there has always been a lot of talk, but nothing ever gets done. That is what we want to change.”
 

Among the acts performing on Saturday will be Shadows of Santana, the Kandu Kollective and the Rag and Bone theatre group.
There is also a young people’s film festival in The Bear Hotel.
Bash Street will then be shown in The Bear at 10pm.