Music from Helston Town Band helped celebrate the launch of two major projects in the town on Saturday.

Costing a combined £1million in total, the opening of the new CAST Café in Penrose Road and the start of the Groundwork summer of art was a cause for celebration.

With blue sky and brilliant sunshine overhead, members of Helston Town Band played some of their most loved tunes - including an ironically selected version of Singin’ In the Rain – on the terrace of the new café.

It has been refurbished as part of a £500,000 renovation of the former Green School building, funded by the Arts Council.

Run by chef-manager Dom Bailey, it will be open Thursdays to Sundays, 10am to 6pm, as well as Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings.

With the café complete in time for the summer, further work will then take place on the other half of the building from this September to create a new entry into the former assembly hall, a lobby area and provide heating to allow year-round events.

Alison Bunning, one of the architects working on the project, said: “It’s very much a project in progress at the moment. We don’t want people to go away thinking we have finished, by any means. There’s still lots to do.”

She also praised the contractors for getting the café part open in time to coincide with the start of Groundwork, a three-month programme of events featuring the work of international artists and musicians, at various venues all over Cornwall. Arts Council England gave a further half a million pounds to put on the showcase.

In Helston on Saturday, the CAST building was showing two films by Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen. Gravesend and Unexploded are being shown in a rolling loop a specially built dark room, until June 3.

The programme of exhibitions, which also features three Helston Community College music students, St Keverne Band and a blow up planetarium at Goonhilly Downs, can be found in full at groundwork.art/programme.

Teresa Gleadowe, chair of CAST, said she was “thrilled” to finally be able to unveil the hard work at both the café and over Groundwork.

She said: “It feels really exciting – it is the start of something.

“It’s just been amazing to have Helston Town Band here, so thank you to them. There’s an immediate sense of celebration and occasion – and of course they’re really great.”