THOUSANDS flocked to Northlands Park to celebrate this year’s Basildon and Pitsea Carnival.

The sun shone on families as they enjoyed entertainment by local acts at the park, after the procession through Pitsea.

Chairman Stuart Terson said he was delighted with the turnout during his second year in charge as carnival chairman.

He said: “The weather was absolutely brilliant, which makes a change. We have had a lot of new stall holders this year and everyone has said what a superb atmosphere we had.

“There were 80 stalls and a beer tent - which I was a little bit worried about - but we had no incidents.

“The council’s parks team have really worked their socks off as well.

“They were still out there late on Saturday cleaning up, they went above and beyond.

“It was nice to see lots of organisations getting involved, next year we need to get the word out there a bit more that it’s free to enter.

“We are going to have a couple of weeks off and then start planning for next year.

“We won’t know how much we raised until we do the count up next week.”

This year, the carnival was raising money for Community First Responders and other local good causes.