There’s just a couple of days to go before the streets of Newport will be lined with tantalising treats and entertainment, with the return of Newport Food Festival.

We’re looking forward to hosting even more activities and entertainment over the weekend, with everything from gourmet meals to Chef Broccoli – our brand new festival mascot.

The weekend will kick-off with a supper event on Friday at the Mercure Hotel’s NP20 Bar and Kitchen. Saturday will see the traditional food market, chef demonstrations, talks and taters events, the final of Newport Youth Academy’s Teen Chef competition, and a vegan and vegetarian village. On Sunday there will be live music and street food, and for the younger visitors to the festival, a children’s disco and food themed movies.

A special shout out goes to Daniel Jeynes, a pupil at Llanwern High, who won our competition to design a new festival mascot. Chef Broccoli, with his orange uniform and essential hair net, will be meeting and greeting visitors throughout the weekend.

For a full listing of what’s on, visit newportfoodfestival.co.uk – look forward to seeing you there!

While the food festival is one of our most popular in a growing calendar of events, we are also working all year round to make Newport an enjoyable place to visit.

Recently, I again joined council officers, Gwent Police and other partners out and about in the city centre as part of a community safety week of action. This is my fourth walkabout in the city centre with our community wardens and law enforcement. I witnessed our persistent and dedicated resource starting to reap some rewards.

Officers from a number of council teams, led by our community protection team, engaged with residents and businesses about issues such as anti-social behaviour and community safety.

The latest in a regular series of actions, regular patrols and partner days, they are already having an impact with businesses saying that they have noticed less anti-social behaviour as a result.

Trading standards teams also seized illegal tobacco products and illegal disposable vapes while carrying out checks on premises.

In addition, a renewed public space protection order (PSPO) for the city centre was agreed at the last meeting of full council which helps officers and the police deal with anti-social behaviour.

We also heard from the police at that meeting that crime levels in the city centre and across the city have reduced over the last few months. Across the city shoplifting is down 38 per cent, vehicle crime is down 28 per cent, and in the city centre specifically, crime is down 25 per cent over the last month or so.

It is great to see this positive progress, but we must continue to keep up our activities and strengthen them where we can. You can support us doing this by reporting any anti-social behaviour to either the council or Gwent Police so we can continue to tackle it in an informed and effective way.

Cllr Dimitri Batrouni is the leader of Newport City Council