ORGANISERS of Keighley’s proposed £300,000 Keighley Arts and Film Festival are seeking both volunteers and creative ideas.

They want local people to put forward suggestions for the first wave of the festival planned for October 11 and 12 2019.

The festival, entitled Our Window On The World, is the first part of a bid to eventually win grant cash for a three-year programme of arts events in Keighley.

Jane Howie, from Creative Space, said the theme was about Keighley’s place in the world both now and historically.

She said: “It’s about what we make and what we’ve exported, and still do; who lives here and connects us to the wider world.

“It brings in sub-themes our old mills and our modern manufacturing factories; our communities who have come to live here over the centuries; the landscape that surrounds us.”

The planning meeting will be on November 16 from 9.30am to 11am at Keighley Creative Space, an art gallery and studio inside the former Sunwin House and Home Store on Hanover Street.

Alternatively, anyone with ideas or wanting to volunteer, can email janehowie@live.co.uk.

Window On The World was launched during the summer at Creative Space during a visit to Keighley and Haworth by Arts Minister Michael Ellis.

The festival grew out of moves by Keighley MP John Grogan to bring together local arts groups in order to raise the profile of arts and culture, and enable it to boost the local economy.

The group hopes Keighley will be one of 10 towns across the UK to benefit from Creating Civic Change, a fund aimed at helping communities address social issues such as loneliness and isolation using artistic genres like theatre, dance and visual arts.