A DEMENTIA festival could be held in Southampton in an effort to make the city more welcoming.

The awareness event is being planned alongside changes to buses, signs and West Quay shopping centre.

Civic chiefs are stepping up their bid for Dementia Friendly status, for places where patients and carers can get around and use public services.

Southampton ‘Demfest’ is planned for 2017 and based on a similar event in Romsey.

The city council has drawn up 17 ways to make Southampton more accessible and meet Alzheimer’s Society requirements.

Under the plans all council staff who deal with the public would be trained in the signs and effects of dementia.

Buses and other transport would be designed with the disease in mind, including accessible “super stops” and the city’s new arts centre could be used to provide activities.

West Quay, which has already changed its seating and acoustics for dementia sufferers, is set to create a ‘quiet space’ for relaxation, colour coded parking bays and new signs to help people with dementia find entrances, exits and toilets.

Chris Wyatt, regional operations manager of the Alzheimer’s Society, said awareness would lead to more “kindness and patience” towards sufferers and carers.

She said: “The more that we can do to give employers, businesses, the man in the street, a better understanding of those affected by dementia the better opportunities there are to help people carry on living in their own homes for as long as they can.”

More than 700 people attended the inaugural Romsey DemFest last year, thought to have been the first of its kind in the UK.

It is hoped the Southampton equivalent can build on that success.

Cllr Derek Burke, who sits on a panel investigating dementia friendliness, said: “People think they know about it but they don’t understand it in some respects.

“They think of festivals as something to learn from and experience – it’s a good hook to hang it on.”

Around 2,600 people have the condition in Southampton.

, according to data published last year. This figure is expected to increase in line with the population by 11 per cent between 2012 and 2019.

Nearly one in five sufferers live alone, with another 40 per cent living in the community.

Southampton’s diagnosis rate has improved “dramatically” to reach 70 per cent, according to a council report.

It follows work to link up housing, adult and social care services, but officials concede there is more the city can do.

The plans are set to be discussed by the council’s Scrutiny Inquiry Panel from 5.30pm today at Southampton Civic Centre.