Organisers of the third annual Oswestry Food and Drink Festival say they are hoping to attract record numbers of people to the town this year.

Announcing plans for the festival, to be held on July 11 and 12, organisers claim that despite the recession, they are confident the festival will be “bigger and more successful.”

The event, which attracted thousands of people to the town last year, will again be held along Bailey Street, Cross Street and New Street. Organisers also believe about 40 exhibitors will be attending.

In a letter to Oswestry Town Council, Yossi Gliksman, chairman of the festival, thanked the council for its assistance in its first two years, and appealed again for the same help in 2009.

This included the free use of market stalls and the assistance of the council’s manual staff in putting them up and taking them down.

At an Oswestry Town Council markets and car parks committee meeting last night, councillors agreed to the request and said the council would offer the help again.

They said the cost to the council of providing that help could be met through a grant from the authority’s regeneration budget.

Councillor Betty Gull said: “We are minded to grant their request but that the cost of it, the manpower costs, we would be expecting to be defrayed from the regeneration fund.”