Two teenage promoters are working to ensure a festival stays alive, following massive cutbacks to the event.

Ashford borough councillors have voted to slash £9,000 for the annual Create Festival as the recession bites.

Now Joshua Heyburn and Ryan Lewis are looking into organising a similar alternative festival to keep some sort of summer music event going.

Joshua said: “We will try to organise a similar festival, taking the ideas of Create on board.”

The pair have organised a series of local rock and pop shows under the banner Intimacy Gigs and hope the profits from these would fund a Create-style event.

Ashford Borough Council stressed that this July’s festival at Victoria Park goes ahead as planned but the cutbacks apply to the 2010 event.

Cllr Gerry Clarkson (Con), portfolio holder for cultural services, said: “The council will be looking very closely at the overall budget during 2009/10 to identify any opportunities to reinstate this £9,000 reduction. However as the budget has now been approved we are also busy exploring alternative options to fund this event.”

He also explained that cultural services, like other council departments, had been given particularly large savings targets over the next three years following repeated cuts in government grants.

Joshua and Ryan, Year 11 pupils from Ashford’s Norton Knatchbull School, have been organising Intimacy Gigs since last December.

The latest show was last Friday at the town’s Brake Hall and attracted 250 to 300 people.

The next is planned for April 13 and is expected to be headlined by the artiste Wiley. The producer and MC had a UK top 10 hit last year with Wearing My Rolex.

The venue is to be confirmed.