A SUMMER festival will bring back life to an ancient woodland closed during the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

Hamsterley Forest, near Bishop Auckland, was out-of-bounds to visitors for ten weeks at the height of the crisis. Now forest rangers hope to attract people to the 5,000 acre woodland with a summer festival.

Tomorrow, artist and former nurse Anne Johnson will be running a workshop on creative paper-making and there will be a bike tour looking at wildlife and history.

At 2pm on Sunday, botanist David Bellamy, who lives nearby, will be leading a woodland safari, and at 2.30pm there will be a behind-the-scenes look at how the forest is managed.

Games for children, sculpture-making from forest materials and archery are also on offer.

Forest ranger Simon Blenkinsop said: "We've put together a star-studded line up to make up for lost time."

Events are based around the forest visitor centre.