Thousands attend Colchester Food and Drink Festival in Castle Park

Fans gathered at the annually held Colchester Food and Drink Festival to make the most of the mouth-watering attractions.

The event was held from Saturday to Sunday and witnessed many food fans arriving at Lower Castle Park.

The festival is in its 17th successful year of holding the event in Colchester.

With more than 120 food and drink stalls pitched up in the park, residents were treated to plenty of old favourites and newcomers.

The event aims to showcase some of the best national and international food and drink there is to offer, with visitors able to try out countless offerings from delicious menus.

This year the festival proved to be a roaring success after last year’s event was forced to cancel due to Covid.

The event even held a vaccination centre on Saturday with more than 200 jabs being administered.

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On entering the festival, visitors were also temperature checked and staff were tested for added safety.

Council representatives also visited the festival to assess its safety and gave it a clean bill of health.

Organiser Don Quinn said the event was a massive success.

He said: “It has been beyond my wildest dreams.

“This has been the hardest event to put on in 25 years but it’s just delightful to see hundreds of happy faces.

“We’ve gone through a lot of Covid regulations and the council has supported us with a lot of advice.

“We’ve been doing things like table service at the bar to meet with regulations and I think all told that we’re safer than the town centre.

“We had to cut down the number of stalls to give us more green space but it’s meant we’ve been a lot more local. The event capped capacity at three and a half thousands. It was a voluntary cap, even though we are licensed for seven thousand.

“The Pikestaff Inn bar has been really good, the tables are full all the time.

“We’ve also had some lovely international food like the paella and the Turkish food stall has been amazing.

“The one that has stood out for me was the souvlaki Greek stall – they’ve really stormed it.

“I can’t begin to tell you how much people have enjoyed it – its been a roaring success.

“I think Colchester people were just busting for something like this.”