PLANS are progressing well for the Community Arts Festival Event (CAFE) in Redditch, which culminates on June 11.

The CAFE committee is hard at work finalising the arrangements for an eerie ghost walk on the evening of Thursday, June 9, and a variety show on the following evening at Kingsley College.

There will be day-long events in and around the Kingfisher Centre, St Stephen's Church, the library and Market Place, and there will be a more serious musical concert on the Saturday evening at Kingsley College.

Deputy mayor Councillor Diane Thomas will officially open the event.

Redditch man and BBC Midlands presenter Ben Sidwell will compere the variety show, while Jacqui Smith MP is due to start off the events in the Kingfisher Centre on the Saturday morning and compere the more serious concert.

Other guests include the writer Roy Clews, who grew up in Redditch and put the town on the map with his popular ''Tildy'' books, which described the hard life of a single mother in Redditch in the early 1800s.

Live Ember, a group of poetry lovers who explore the esoteric nature of contemporary and women's poetry, will also be holding workshops in the library.

Radio Pulse will once again be entertaining the crowds in front of the war memorial outside St Stephen's Church.

For more details, call 542516.