A FESTIVAL which encourages people to support local businesses in set to return next month.

Fiver Fest is returning to town from Saturday, October 9 until Saturday, October 23 with Bridport joining other towns across the country in celebrating local independent businesses.

Bridport shops and businesses will be offering customers £5 bargains with the idea that if everyone in Bridport and the surrounding villages spent £5 a week with a local business instead of online or in a big supermarket, an additional £4.6 million would be added to Bridport’s economy.

The Totally Locally Bridport team, which runs the event in the town, put out a call for help earlier in the year as due to the constraints of lockdowns it was down to a skeleton crew. The team has now been backed up by the Bridport Rotary Club and is now well placed to operate this year's Fiver Fest.

Local retailers believe customers have been delighted to return to the high street after often being unable to over the past sixteen months, due to the pandemic.

Nikki Brotherton, visitor services manager at the Bridport Museum, sees Fiver Fest as 'a great opportunity to regularly reconnect with the community'.

She said: "It provides a focus to bring fresh local footfall into our unique shop, and to spread the word about our neighbouring independent businesses, which make our historic market town such a great place to be.’"

Created by TotallyLocally.org, the aim of Fiver Fest is to encourage people to think about how they spend their cash with a simple message, if everyone spent just £5 per week extra it could massively boost a towns economy.

All local independent businesses are eligible to take part this October to sign up or for more information please email the team at totallylocallybridport@gmail.com.