Porthleven Food Festival could become a full three-day event, turning the first day into an “expo” for stallholders.

This was the news fed back to Porthleven Town Council last week, where members urged organisers to consult the local community before coming to a final decision.

Reporting back to the council as its representative on the food festival committee, councillor Mark Adair stressed that at this stage it was very much just an idea that had been floated for further consideration.

Mr Adair said: “The primary reason for doing a three-day event is the amount they’re charging for pitches and expectations from stallholders to have three days of trading.

“They were wanting to make the Friday more of a trade event, rather than the food festival as we know it – make it more of an expo to give an extra day’s trading.”

He said he had raised the issue of parking, with residents returning home on a Friday to find no space to park, with the festival committee saying they had been offered additional parking at the shipyard next year.

But mayor Andrew Wallis said: “That’s fine for stallholders, but where do guests and visitors park? Will they be fully utilising the car parks? People who know the area will park everywhere. If it is a three-day event, how are they going to manage the parking so as not to aggravate residents?”

He described the festival as “a fantastic success,” but added: “There needs to be some community liaison about why it needs to be a three-day event, as we have dealt with an awful lot of complaints; we want to see this avoided.”

Mr Wallis acknowledged that it was an expensive event to stage, costing around £70,000, and the costs needed to be recouped somehow whether that was grants, donations, or making the money back themselves.

Mr Adair added: “There’s such a good feeling about the food festival, but it’s just getting to that point where it’s starting to tip - and it would be a shame if it did tip.”

It was agreed to ask a representative of the food festival committee to attend the council’s January meeting, to hear more about its traffic management plan for 2018.

“That will give them the chance to talk, to see if this is a goer,” added Mr Wallis.

Next year's event, which will take place over the weekend of April 20 to 22, will mark the tenth anniversary of the food festival.

Alec Short, director of ARC Live, who manage the production of the event, said: "The idea of extending some areas of the festival to include more hours on Friday has come about in order to create a three-day trading window, following feedback from traders and in line with similar local events such as the St Ives Food Festival, Padstow Festival and Great Cornish Food Festival.

"We’ll be consulting JPS (Jon Perry) to produce a detailed traffic management plan for the weekend to minimise impact to local residents and businesses."

David Turnbull, chair of the Portheven Food Festival, added: "We’re very much in the early planning stages and initial conversations with businesses around the harbour have been very positive, but there are many interested parties including residents, the town council, Harbour & Dock Company and the Porthleven Business Forum who will need to be consulted about this and the other plans we’re considering for the weekend.

"This is the tenth year of the food festival and we’re really looking forward to a positive and fun-filled day that can by enjoyed by everyone. We were delighted to recently bring home the bronze award in the prestigious Cornwall Tourism Awards and we’re always looking for ways we can improve the experience for everyone."