ROSSENDALE Town Crier and self-employed events organiser Peter Gill wants to run the borough's carnival in June.

For many years Rossendale Council has commissioned Mid Pennine Arts in Burnley to organise the event and last year MPA used Mr Gill to organise and manage the event -- this year he wants to go it alone.

In his application, which will be discussed by councillors on the leisure and economic development sub-committee on Thursday, Mr Gill is proposing to theme the event on the Commonwealth in advance of the Commonwealth Games being held in Manchester in 2002.

And he has suggested encouraging the carnival king, queen, prince and princess from Moss Side because their costumes are "dazzling and flamboyant."

He said: "Last year I used the personal approach to encourage groups to join in the event, this proved very successful and I would adopt the same principle for this year, increasing the range of target groups to include fitness gyms, football teams, cricket teams, badminton and tennis clubs.

"In Rossendale there is a large Asian community who have never joined in the event, these groups would be approached."

He plans to follow the format of last year's carnival which discouraged use of larger vehicles and instead was a long walking procession which snaked between Stacksteads and Bacup and was greeted favourably by on lookers.

More than 700 people walked in last year's procession including 300 children who provided a colourful entertaining procession.

Churches altered their time of their services in order to join in the carnival and spread the Christian word and groups got involved because it was cheaper that preparing a large float and covering the cost of insuring the vehicle for the carnival.

In Bacup town centre there will be fairground rides, food sellers and charity stalls and Mr Gill is planning to run a car boot sale on South Street and a flea market on the market and existing traders would be encouraged to open.

He is proposing to run the carnival on June 24.