The Porthleven Food and Music Festival committee has met for the first time to start planning for the 2017 event, which will be held between April 21 and 23.

The festival, which attracts around 20,000 visitors to Porthleven over three days, costs over £65,000 to put on. The money to enable the festival to happen is raised by sponsorship, traders’ income, an auction and a small amount of funding from Porthleven Town Council and the Cornwall Council Community Fund.

The Porthleven Food and Music Festival is not just about showcasing amazing food from the county, but also raising money for local causes. For the 2016 festival, Porthleven Lights Committee was chosen as the local organisation to be supported.

This year the committee was able to award Porthleven Lights Committee £1,732 which is half of the money raised from the festival auction.

Roger Taff, who is part of the lights committee said: “I would like to say thank you on behalf of the lights committee for this generous donation. We never expected this much and we as a committee are really grateful for the support. This money will enable us to replace, renew and repair Porthleven’s lights”.

David Turnbull, the 2017 festival committee chairman said: “The lights add to the magic of Porthleven and therefore we as a committee were very pleased to be able to support the lights committee.

“As next year’s committee starts to plan for 2017, I would like to thank all those volunteers who helped make the 2016 event a success. I look forward to building on the success of Hannabeth Johnson who led the committee in 2016.”