PENARTH town council is looking for retailers and sponsors to take the lead in running two major events which benefit businesses in Penarth.

As part of the council's aims and objectives moving forward, they have confirmed they are looking for local businesses to take over the running of the Late Night Shopping event and sponsors to fund the Picnic Penarth street food event for Spring 2017.

The Penarth Times has launched the Your High Street: Use It or Lose It campaign to back the town's local shops in the wake of declining footfall figures over the last decade

Each week we will be exploring issues that affect our high streets and approaches to increasing people's usage of them.

The town council has previously part funded the street food festival known as Picnic Penarth along with the Vale council but is looking to secure sponsorship from other sources to keep the event going which it says benefits permanent retailers in the town.

Thousands attended the second event in April this year with dozens of local businesses and those from further afield displaying their products on Station Approach.

A town council spokeswoman said: "Static retailers in the town benefited enormously from the previous Picnic Penarth events held in 2015 and 2016, therefore the economic benefit to the town is not just for the event itself but is far wider reaching to include the town centre and esplanade businesses."

The town council recently held its second late night shopping event in the town centre.

The council offered its financial support to the event on both occasions.

But the spokeswoman said that this town centre event has established itself as a retailer led experience and was reported by many retailers who took part as a "very successful" evening.

She said "The aim of this initiative is to increase community participation which maximises the economic benefits of the event.

"We want to build upon successful events of 2016 to promote Penarth town as the retail and food destination of choice

"The town council will be happy to support late night shopping through its website advertising at Christmas 2017."