ORGANISERS are optimistic the popular Chippenham Family Fun Day in Monkton Park will return after a successful first outing this year.

Ten Chippenham churches came together to put on the free community event that saw children get involved with a tug-of-war, bouncy castle and shield making.

Ian Green and a band from London performed live for the event which also saw a bird of prey demonstration.

Children were heavily involved throughout the day, either leaping on the bouncy castle or getting messy by painting their cardboard shields.

Mayor David Powell helped with the release of 150 balloons containing handwritten wishes and prayers from youngsters at the conclusion of the day.

Rev Keith Wilson from the Chippenham Christian Fellowship said: “I think the general feeling was a really excellent day and people were asking when we could do the next one.

“Everything went according to plan over and above what we had anticipated. I think the consensus is we would definitely like to have another event next year. The general feeling was this was a fantastic day let’s do this again next year

“We had about ten churches from Chippenham unite together to put on a fun family community event and we were very pleased with the response of the public. We were very pleased the churches worked really well together it was a great sense of unity.

“It was a great success, we had hundreds of people down we had quite a turnover of people it was really well packed.

The Chippenham Church Together group hope to repeat a similar event next year on the third Saturday in July.