WILTON Carnival is back on track for another day of fun and spectacle this year.

The big event will take place on Saturday, July 5 and start with a procession from Wilton Community Centre in West Street at 12.30pm. This will wend its way to the attractions in the car park at Wilton Shopping Village, where there will be dozens of stalls, as well as fire engines, marquees and horse carriage rides, a children’s show, live bands, dancers, duck races and a bouncy castle.

Chairman Gary Nunn said the carnival procession had been reinstated after problems last year, and it had been decided to stick with the shopping village car park as the main site as it had been so successful.

He said: “We were overwhelmed with the response, and the shopping village was very cooperative. Now we are looking for sponsors again.

“We had to suspend the procession last year because of late organisation and problems with highways.”

The procession will be on the theme of heroes and heroines, and will include the Casa de Samba drum band. The day after the carnival, Mr Nunn is organising a Big Lunch event in a marquee at the shopping village, when local people can share a picnic lunch and donate to the Trussell Trust Foodbank. This is part of a national campaign that originated at The Eden Project in Cornwall.

• On April 12 at 7pm, Wilton Community Carnival, along with Wilton Partnership, is presenting Battle Lines, a two-part show by Forest Forge Theatre in the community centre in West Street, Wilton. Writer and designer David Haworth has written both 45-minute pieces, based on local research. The first, The Call Up, deals with the impact of volunteering on a village in the early days of the First World War. The second, Keep Smiling Through, follows three evacuee children from London. Tickets cost £9 and are available from Wilton Hardware or by calling 01722 501776.