A LOCAL and well-respected festival has been saved from the brink – after intervention from the Herald.

West Kilbride’s Scarecrow Festival is renowned for its creative spark, community spirit and togetherness of a village,

But after a difficult few years, it was the task of the West Kilbride Development Group to take the festival forward.

Although they had plans in place to try and make it a success, it was proving difficult and lack of support meant that a halt was put on all plans - until the group approached the Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald.

Now seven local groups and organisations have already signed up to create their own unique scarecrow and they hope that others will follow their lead.

The Herald will make a scarecrow along with Police Scotland, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, Ardrossan Coastguard, Capall Dorcha, North Ayrshire Athletics Club and Maximum Potential Health and Fitness.

But the festival needs as much support as possible - and it isn’t restricted to West Kilbride.

If you are involved in a local group or organisation and want to get involved, you can contact the Herald for more details.

In a statement, the group said: “The West Kilbride Improvement Group are delighted that the Ardrossan Herald have come on board to save the West Kilbride Scarecrow Festival from cancellation this year, they have recruited the support of the coastguard, fire brigade and police which is fantastic.

“We have now rebooked the Ayrshire Community Education Sports (ACES) who provide such things as Giant Slide, Large Zorb Balls plus, which the youngsters will really enjoy.

“We are certain the community will get behind the Scarecrow Festival and make it something special to bring visitors to the village. We greatly appreciate the efforts of the Gala Committee over recent years attempting to combine it with the Gala, but we all agree it will be much better to have the two events at separate times of the year.

“There will still be the usual scarecrow competitions for the various groups.”

Herald Senior Reporter, Paul Fisher, said: “The festival is a key date in the calendar in West Kilbride and when we heard that it was under threat, we worked fast to ensure that it wouldn’t be consigned to the history books. We hope that with our help that the festival will be a big success.”

The festival for 2018 will culminate with a day of fun in the village on August 4.