Cockermouth's Kirkgate Centre will join forces with more than 5,000 businesses across the UK to promote the positive impact community businesses have.

The centre will be throwing its doors open for a special weekend to welcome visitors behind the scenes on July 2 and 3.

Community businesses are owned and run by the community with the main aim of helping to bring people together to improve their local area.

This year Power to Change, the organisation launched to support and help grow community businesses, is driving forward a campaign hoping to raise awareness of what these ventures can achieve and how more of them can be established.

Kate Parry, the centre's chief executive, said: "We hope to welcome as many people as possible to take a closer look at what we do here.

"It is very important to us that people do get the chance to find put more about us but also that we get a chance to say thank you to all those who have supported us in what we have achieved so far."

The centre is celebrating its 21st birthday this summer, and has just introduced a new online ticketing system to allow easier access to buying tickets with a grant from Power to Change.

Kate added: “It has been 10 years of development, with constant applications for funding. In the past few months, we have made over 40 new applications to allow us to modernise our infrastructure after the devastating floods from the past two years.

A Power to Change spokesman said almost 130,000 volunteers had taken part in work within a community businesses.

He said: "These businesses return control to the community and can have long-lasting benefits for health and well-being.

"We hope people will take this opportunity to pay the Kirkgate Centre a visit and see what a vital part of the community it is."