Festival aims to lift town morale

Flags and heart-shaped balloons have been put up in the streets

A Gloucestershire town where 320 engineering jobs were lost is to hold a morale-lifting festival to help the community.

People in Wotton-under-Edge have put up flags and heart-shaped balloons in the town's High Street and a festival was being held on Saturday.

Earlier this year, measuring equipment firm Renishaw, said it was considering hundreds of job losses.

Festival organiser Janet Walshe said the town had a positive attitude.

She said: "We have 82 small businesses in the town.

This event aims to keep people positive and buoyant."

'Community spirit'

"We've had two shops shut this week but we've had another open, we're hanging on in," she added.

Professor Mark Horton, who has lived in the town for 15 years, said residents' sense of community would see the town through the bad times.

He said: "The festival is part of that community spirit. This town has gone through historically high and low points.

"There was a huge woollen industry here in the 19th Century. This community spirit will see it through."

Renishaw said earlier this year it would be consulting with staff and unions over the job losses.

Some 440 jobs are being cut worldwide, 320 of them in Gloucestershire.

A further 12 could also be at risk