MAJOR changes are expected for one of York’s biggest festivals next year.

The York Food And Drink Festival has run in the city for 18 years, and regularly draws thousands of visitors to stalls in Parliament Street and St Sampson’s Square, as well as events around the city.

But City of York Council has now said any future festival stalls would have to be in the recently redeveloped Shambles Market.

Gill Cooper, from the council, said: “Any festival events are to be held in Parliament Street, with any market element or stalls joining Shambles Market and benefiting from its refurbishment.”

Festival organiser Michael Hjort said this change would affect the event, and he was working with the council on the best way to present the stalls and demonstrations in 2015 - but said there were no plans to scale down the event.

He said: “The festival traditionally has round about 80 stands at any one time and there plainly isn’t room for us and the existing traders in the Shambles Market, so that doesn’t work as a plan. There are clearly a lot of possibilities that might work and that’s part of the ongoing discussion.

“There are no plans to run a smaller event. We’re looking forward, having been very, very disrupted by the redevelopment of the Shambles last year that caused some considerable concern among visitors, to getting back to an event on the size and scale we have traditionally had.”

Mr Hjort said he hoped plans could be in place by February, when traders traditionally started to book stalls for the September festival.

He said the festival would differ from some past ones but said: “This year’s festival was more than what simply goes on in Parliament Street, with schools and demonstration programmes, dinners and wine tastings, and we’re hoping to have a lot of that back next year and more, so it’s my expectation we will run an event in terms of size and scale is similar.”

The council said the plans to move markets from Parliament Street would not affect the St Nicholas Fair or Made In Yorkshire events, and Gill Cooper said the authority was in discussion with festival organisers and “hope to work with them to develop and expand the festival right across the city”.