ARTS, family fun, music and food will be firmly on the menu in Darlington at the weekend

Festival goers can enjoy music and arts at a range of venues and then sample delicious food around the town centre as Darlington Arts Festival continues and Darlington Food Festival gets tastebuds tingling.

Highlights of the food festival, on Saturday (May 9) and Sunday, include a producers' market selling handmade sausages, chocolates, artisan breads, cakes and much more.

Foodies can take top tips from top chefs in the marquee at Joseph Pease Place alongside free tastings and the chance to sample street food from around the world. Stalls will be open for business along High Row from 10am – 5pm both days.

Free street entertainment will be on offer throughout the weekend which will end with the return of the Locomotion Cake Parade through the town centre.

Everyone is welcome to come and get creative decorating cakes, in homage to Darlington’s historical links with the railways, to represent the 32 carriages pulled on the first ever passenger journey on the Locomotion steam train in 1825.

Darlington Arts Festival continues throughout the weekend with an Arts Showcase event on Sunday from 10am to 4pm.

For the first time, this event will take place in what has been dubbed Darlington’s ‘cultural quarter’ – the area along Borough Road from the Civic Theatre, past the site for the new Children’s Theatre Hullaballoon, the Forum Music Centre up to Darlington College and Teesside University in Haughton Road.

This family event is free to enter and has a theme of arts, music, crafts, leisure, theatre and dance.

For further information on the food festival, visit darlofoodfest.org and for details of Darlington Arts Festival, visit darlingtonforculture.org